Bros Nest

Our Costa Rica hotel was very nice, but a little on the old side. The septic system hadn’t been updated since the Eisenhower administration, so every restroom featured a little sign asking you not to use any toilet as it was intended.

But what the hotel lacked in flushing capabilities, it more than made up for in pool capabilities. Aside from being bathwater warm shallow enough to keep Luca alive, it featured a Bros Nest (named by yours truly).

The Bros Nest was this little hot tub about 6 feet above the main pool. The two pools were connected by a neato waterfall. This is why I loved our hotel. No American hotel in a million billion years would allow this death trap to exist. The whole thing was made from slippery rock that would smash your skull of you even brushed against it. You had to scramble up said slipper rock to access the pool. And if you survived, you could treat yourself to leaping from one pool to the other very shallow pool, dislocating your knees if you were lucky.

As we stood before this amazing feat of insane engineering, I caught the eye of some of the other American moms. They all gave me almost imperceptible “no” head shakes. They had all declare the Bros Nest as off limits to any human being.

I had a little inner debate with myself. Yes, banning the Bros Nest would satisfy my anxieties. It would also guarantee we would not have to visit a Costa Rican hospital (which, based on the septic systems would not be good). Plus it would give me the opportunity to be a mean dad.

But then I looked into the faces of Elijah and Luca and thought, “They should have the opportunity to break an arm in a foreign country.”

I declared the Bros Nest open for business! I also informed Diana that “Hoes” were also allowed.  She declined.

We spent the next week creating elaborate games in which the loser had to walk the plank. I did have to leap in and rescue Luca a few times when he shouted his emergency word “Mango!”

Occasionally, a kid would join us as his mother shot us daggers with her eyes. We would then explain one of our games.

“You have to choose a super hero. And then fight the other two super heroes to see who has to walk the plank. It can’t be a super hero with mind powers and you can’t be a god. If your super hero is part of a team, you may call in the other members of your team. But those team member can’t be gods either.”

The kid would then just politely excuse him or herself. No waterfall was worth talking to these losers.

In the end, no one fell or broke an arm. But Luca got banished twice for roughhousing. Diana graced us with one leap on the end of the week as an honorary Bro, which was the highlight of our trip.