Activity for the Mindless

Again, I just want to emphasize that I underestimate the pool people. This is how my day began:

Opening up the skimmers after two whole days is a horrible idea. You should always check them daily, just in case there is a deadly present waiting, floating and contaminating the water. Today was the day for that. I found a very large and very dead mouse swirling around in the skimmer. I always have to gear myself up for dealing with this sort of thing. It's not that I am faint of heart or can't handle it, its just the fact that there is a dead animal that close my face. I don't like it one bit. I walked around for a few minutes, telling myself just to close my eyes and swoop it up in the net. It's hard when you can feel the wait of that poor animal in the net and then the "plop" into the empty trash can. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.

After that incident was taken care of, I sat down with my book and prepared myself for a boring day. While the sun was shining, it was still only 74 degrees outside. To my surprise one of my regulars pulled up in his shiny red Pontiac. The man always wears red shorts, a red surfer shirt and black tennis shoes. He usually shows up around 4:30pm on weekdays (only) and falls asleep in a lawn chair for exactly one hour. He is a man of routine. What threw me for a loop was when he showed in a white T-shirt, jeans and some white tennies. I didn't know what to think. I glanced at my watch and realized that it was only 10:15am. He walked over to me and asked me how was I doing. Assuming that our regular conversation would follow I said I was fine and told him about not worrying about having his pass with him. He smiled and instead gave me a sheet of paper that had a Six-Flags logo on it. I was too shocked for words. He said that he had found this coupon this morning and thought I could use it. With that he left. I was still sitting there with the coupon in my hand, unable to get anything but a "thank you" out of my dropped jaw.

Later on, a woman came to lay out in the not-so-hot weather. She made small talk with me, asking if it was really boring working all week with no one to watch swim. I laughed but told her that I just do a lot of reading. She wondered how I was able to work in the middle of the day. I told her that I was "done with school." She eyed me suspiciously and asked me what I was going to do once the pool closed. My stomach dropped at the thought of yet another job hunt that needed to happen. I told her that I would just wait and see what happens. Her reply: "Well don't wait too long." Grandmother advice with a bit of punch. She then decided to leave me with one more bit of advice: "Have you ever thought about going to college?" Bite me.

Lastly, I would like to leave every pool person out there with a bit of advice. If the lifeguard is wearing pants, a sweatshirt and actual socks then it just might be a little too cold to swim. Just a thought.