In case you missed it, earlier this week I participated in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and posted the best part of the video on my KikiWrites Facebook page (you would know that if you liked that page, hint hint). It’s the craze sweeping the nation and all for a good cause!
But because I’m an egotistical sort and this is my blog, I thought I’d give a little insight into my particular ice bucket challenge.
Here are five behind the scenes trivia bits about it.
1. I wore that shirt on purpose. You’d think it was a blunder wearing a white shirt for a water challenge, but no. I wore it for the message (Live Laugh Love) and I wore it because my darling friend Carl referred to me doing the ice bucket challenge as a wet t-shirt contest and I felt compelled to play up that angle because I thought it was funny.
2. I involved my nieces. I decided to seize the opportunity of being challenged to educate my nieces (I’m homeschool them anyway, so might as well). In order to dunk Aunt Kiki with ice water, they had to learn a little something. The older two had to read about ALS and the ice bucket challenge while I explained it all to the youngest niece. When it came time to do it, the middle niece filmed it while the youngest niece had the honor of drenching me (the oldest niece had lost interest at that point because being 12 is hard, yo). The younger two then opted to also do the challenge unofficially (I did film them and posted those videos for family to see). What started out as a fun opportunity to pour ice water on Aunt Kiki became an education in charity, illness, and the power of community.
3. I flipped the bird to certain people in the comments of the original video. The full-length video was posted on my personal Facebook page because that’s where I was challenged. My first comment on it was to inform people offended by the “waste of water” of two websites, water.org and cleanwater.org, which they could visit in order to turn their disdain into positive action. If you’re going to be asshole by judging and dismissing people’s attempts to do something good, then I’m going to make you LOOK like an asshole. I got no problems with that.
4. I donated money, too. Many of the detractors point out that people are wasting water just to get out of donating money. HOWEVER. Many, if not most of, the participants are donating some money. I couldn’t afford to kick in a lot of dough, but I did kick in a bit. I also made sure to mention the website repeatedly so other people would know where to go to donate.
5. I did this challenge at my mom’s house, so… She got that big dead spot in her yard where her pool had been nice and watered, but it’s a 25 minute drive home for me and I wasn’t going to do it in wet clothes. And since I already lug two bags to her house to teach, I really didn’t want to pack another one so I could change for the drive home. So I took my pajamas instead. And drove home bra-less.
The more you know…
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