Fountain Report 2: The Great Fountain Fiasco

Monday April 24th is a day that will forever live in infamity. It was the day of the Great Fountain Fiasco. I will now weave you the tale of how a group of innocent Canadians all met their fate. I apologize for the amount of pictures in this entry and their darkness, but they are necessary to properly portray this story of violence, betrayal and Pickwicks.


The site of the tragedy (the fountain is to the left, barely out of the picture)

The night started innocent enough. A group of us praktikants gathered at Pickwicks for “all you can eat” ribs. It was an evening filled with good friends and good food, however there was tension in the air.


The praktikants enjpy their ribs. Note the look of fear in thier eyes. 
From lef to right Lindsey, Stefan, Keegan, Travis, Devon, Henry, Mike, Tylers curly locks

You see this was not an ordinary Pickwicks gathering, instead it was a last gathering for several soon to be gone Canadians. Henry, Bernard, Mike, Tommy and Tyler were leaving Baden soon, which meant they had to go in the fountain.

This was a troublesome situation, 5 people had to go in the fountain. 5! Such a task had never been accomplished. How were to get all 5 of them? While we were struggling with 1, the other 4 might run. Also, what happened if they worked together against us. Surely, all 5 of them could successful rise up against their would-be fountain dunkers! To avoid this, the evening was filled with whispers and plotting.

Tommy had brought his friend from Zurich to meet us all. He had to leave early to walk her to the train station. We knew that this was time to strike.

 
Myri, Tommy and Warren (they were never seen dry again)

The moment that Tommy left the bar we pounced! Tommy was so shocked by our surprise attack he barely had time to react before he was thrown into the fountain!

 
Tommy is the first to go

 

 It's now time for him to walk Myri home...


The cat was out of the bag, it was now a matter of getting the other 4. Setting up guards outside the bar, a group of us went in to get the next victim. Like prisoners awaiting execution, they sat in a fearful calm as we chose who’d be next. After must deliberation, we snatched Henry and dragged him the awaiting fountain.

            
Henry is dragged out to the fountain

We were now ready for a challenge. We knew that both Mike and Tyler would not go to their cold wet fate without a struggle. After sizing them up, we sensed weakness in Mike and grabbed him. He put a fight, but no one escapes the fountain!

       
Mike embraces his watery fate

That’s when it happened! Richard let it slip that in preparation for this fountain night, he had worn a swimsuit under his jeans. We could not let this stand unchallenged, we grabbed the fiend and threw him the fountain. His swimsuit did a good job getting wet.

       
Richard made his choice

Bernard then approached us. He had made peace with the world was ready to accept his sentence. We gave him one look of solemn respect... and proceeded to thrown him in the fountain.

    
Bernard goes out with honor

It was now time for the main event: Tyler. I will give Tyler credit, he was quite the scrapper. An umbrella was damaged in the struggle to get him into the fountain. However, we rallied and he could not escape his fate.

    
Tyler fights with all his might (that was the last time the umbrella was seen undamaged)

You’d think that now that the 5 had gone in (plus Richard) we’d be done. Wrong, it was now time to get the surprise fountainings. Shane was leaving Baden soon, he expected that we would get him later. Little did we know that luring here was part of our cunning plan to get him in with minimum struggle. Tyler was barely out of the fountain before Shane had been thrown in.

     
Shane feels the cold chill of the water

Next up was Devon. While he was staying Baden, he was changing jobs. That was good enough reason for us and we surrounded him. He joined the large group of now wet Canadians.

    
Devon is caught off guard and thrown in

Evan was next. Evan had to go into the fountain because... ugh... well... this is where it started to break down. We had gone to far, we were now fountaining people for no reason what so ever. Like the Great Terror of the French Revolution, we were now cannibalizing ourselves!

 
So it begans with Evan...

I came to this shocking realization too late, the scoundrels had already gotten me. I struggled and tried to run, but there were too many of them. The next thing I knew I was sitting in a pool of water.

    
Unsanctioned fountaining of me!!!

As I sat within the fountain outside of Pickwicks I had an epiphany. It couldn’t stop at me. All the Canadians were going to have to face a similar fate. I stood up on the fountain and announced:


“If I got in, EVERYBODY goes in!!!“

I looked at the people who were still dry and chose Warren as my next target. Without a moment of hesitation, I ran in to him and proceeded to push him towards the fountain. It was an epic struggle as everyone stood back to watch the clash between Warren and I.

 
It's a clash of the titans as I push Warren to the fountain

However I made a miscalculation. You see I assumed Warren was a normal person and it would be a fair fight, however I quickly discovered this was not true. Years of war, pain and RIAA lawsuits had changed him inside. His inner fury had made him more than a man, he had become an Instrument of Vengeance filled with unholy strength and speed.

And that is why Warren was successful in throwing my ass in the fountain. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I was sitting in the fountain and Warren was gloating dryly. It was in this moment of darkness that light came:  Tommy returned from dropping off Mryi. Tommy and the group descended on Warren and he joined me in the fountain.

 
No one escapes the fountain

It was time for the next target: Travis. We got him the fountain but he managed to escape without getting his head wet. We weren’t done with him yet...

    
Travis goes in the first time. He should have just let us dunk his head...

I decided that Felix was going in next, however I knew Felix was going to be tricky. You see, Felix can run like a gazelle on crack. I only had two options to take him down. Either 1) I take out his knees or 2) I ambush him when he’s not expecting it. I went for option 2 since it seemed to have less legal ramifications. We tackled Felix and he was soon floating in a pool of water.

       
Felix is ambushed!!!

Kevin came next. His old man wisdom/charisma wasn’t enough to save him from the fountain. Though it was enough to somehow get me back into the fountain...

    
FOUNTAINED (Ow, Kevin's dryness)

 
I even don't know how this happened...

Travis had assumed he had escaped having dry hair. We proceeded to prove him wrong.

    
Travis with his newly wet head plots revenge

At this point Keegan had been using his ninja skills to lurk on the edges and escape the fountain. However, the sight of Travis going in must of distracted him and we jumped him. The next thing he knew he was swimming with the fishes.

 
Not even his skills can save Keegan

At this point all the Canadian guys were wet. That left only one option, the girls! Lindsey was the first to go. She tried to run but Tommy was successful in catching up to her (Where’s your gym now Linds?!). Into the water she went.

    
Lindsey is the first girl to go for an unplanned swim

Jacqui and Adrienn were next. Unfortunately, since they were taking all the pictures, we have no pictures of them going into the fountain.

Adrienn put up quite the fight. It took about 5 of us to get her into the fountain and she bit Mike, but it didn’t help her in end and into the fountain she went.

Finally Evan picked up Jacqui and threw her in. It probably involved the least struggle.

 
Group shot of us now wet Canadains 
From left to right: Tommy, Travis, Mike, Richard, Evan, Felix, me, Lindsey, Bernard, Keegan, Jacqui, Shane, Devon, Kevin, Adrienn, Warren, Tyler and Henry

 
Bernard bikes away from Pickwicks never to return
(I'm really happy with the way this picture turned out. Looks like being drunk gives a bonus to my photography skill)

That’s brings us to the end of the great Fountain Fiasco. Where 5 were only supposed to go in, 18 did. To this day we still wake up in the middle of the night and question how we allowed ourselves to involved in such a blood curdling tragedy outside the quiet bar of Pickwicks.