Odysseus comes to an island, and with him he brings the wine of the gods. This wine is ruby red, it smells like honey, and when deluded with twenty cups of water it still tastes good. Odysseus takes twelve of his best fighters with him on the island. The men want to take the cyclops flock of sheep, and Odysseus tells them no. They go to the cyclops den, and the cyclops shuts the door. The cyclops asks them who they are, and what they are doing. Odysseus answers him by telling him how cool he is, and demanding him to give them gifts or Zeus will punish him. The cyclops gets angry, eat a few of Odysseus' men, and goes to sleep. While he sleeps Odysseus and his men sharpen a spike and plunge it in the Cyclops' eye. Outraged, the cyclops cries out, and his brethren ask him whats wrong. He yells "No body's hurt me"! (Since Odysseus had told him his name was Nobody earlier). The Cyclops brethren tell him to pray to Poseidon and go back to bed. Later, when the cyclops opens the door to let his sheep out, Odysseus and his men ride on the sheep's back to leave. They go to their sheep taking the sheep with them. As they depart Odysseus yells to the cyclops, telling him how he bested him. The angry cyclops throws stones at their boat ant they almost sink. Poseidon curses Odysseus for what he did to the cyclops. By the way, the cyclops is named Polyphemus.
When I was about eight, my mother took some friends, my siblings, and I to the neighborhood pool. The youngest in the party were my little sister and her friend. Neither of them could really swim yet. My little sisters friend decided that he would jump into the pool and catch hold of his noodle. Unfortunately, when he jumped in he missed the noodle. Since he couldn't swim he began flailing in the water, desperately trying to keep his head above the water. I saw him flailing in the water, and I jumped in to get him. "Grab on", I said as he reached out for me. With whatever swimming abilities I had when I was eight, I started progress toward the side of the pool. My little sisters friend was probably about three, and he was heavy for me. He was still really scared, and out of fear he kept pushing on my head so he could stay above the water. I couldn't keep my head above the water whenever he pushed it under. He wasn't trying to harm me, he was just too young to realize the problem he was creating. I was afraid I would run out of air, but I still kept on swimming until we reached the shore. I'm sure my little sisters friend was glad to get back on dry land.
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