Marco! Polo!

Fill a public swimming pool with kids on any of the scorching days to come, and sooner or later someone’s going to shout, “Marco!” Several others will shout, “Polo!” and in the summer heat, this vexing water game is reborn.

The person shouting “Marco” is “it,” and must tag one of the “Polos.” It’s tricky because the “Marco” has to perform this task in water, without the benefit of eyesight. While they are usually trusted to keep their eyes shut, “Marcos” have been known to cheat.

Like building meth labs and bonsai gardening, instructions for this simple activity have proliferated online. Since the game consists mostly of delivering misleading information over a distance to the uninformed, it can easily be taken for a grim parable of the world wide web. Like everything else on the net, it now spreads unchecked across the heartland. At the St. Louis Park Aquatic Park some of the game’s admitted participants are also pool employees.

“I liked that game,” admitted ticket-taker Katie Johnson one recent afternoon. She stressed the past tense. Her companion, Jessie Lee, added that at their age (around 15) priorities have shifted too far guyward to get into the spirit. Even so, kids old enough to drive have owned up to The Rake that they still get a kick out of blind water tag.

Lifeguards have also taken notice of the game, though they say it is easier to hear it than to see it. While none would consent to playing the game while on duty—indeed, they preferred not even to talk about it while working—they have one thing in common with those who do: They have no idea what the game has to do with the 13th century explorer from Venice for whom the game is named. Venice is, of course, full of water. And Marco Polo sought the unknown. But to a number, both players and observers of the game find no connection to the father of the Eurasian spice trade. “I have no idea,” is the mantra on this topic, though a few are willing to ruminate on the matter.

“He was a guy who went to China,” said Jessie Lee, betting on historical fact. During the five o’clock safety break during which the pool is emptied of swimmers and checked for victims, one lifeguard warmed to the topic. “Maybe,” she said, “he was blind.”