I believe that they are CBMs (Crack Baby Mamma) children. I only assume so by the way that she blatantly ignores them until the point where her drunk friends cant take care of them anymore and she steps in with a booming order that they better listen…or else. Nothing ever follows the “or else”, so maybe that is why I have more power than she does. Although I must admit they listen to their mother, either out of love or fear (I would lean on the later). Well the pool always closes at the same time every night for children, while the adults are allowed to stay. I usually leave a window of time for the parents to round up their children, towels and scattered toys before I make ita point that their children must leave now. The window is roughly 15 minutes. When those minutes began to tick by, I realize that this might be one of those times where someone needed to step in. The children were running everywhere with their floaties still attached to their arms. They had blocked out all callings of their name and didn’t seem to feel anyone grab their arms to shake them into paying attention. Now, my sister Lisa (sometimes nicknamed “the Nazi”) was there with me and I could tell that her patience was slipping. No one should underestimate the temper of someone shorter than 5 foot. She may be short, but I am pretty sure she could pick me up over her head if she wanted to. I didn’t want to deal with the rowdy kids, so I sent Lisa to figure it out while I watched. At this point the little kids were in the baby pool and running away from any adult that tried to capture them. They didn’t see Lisa coming. I watched as they rammed into Lisa’s legs. She calmly looked at them, got on their level looking straight into their bewildered faces. “You need to walk and you need to go home with your mom.” It was simple. They didn’t turn, but seemed to be backing away from Lisa’s face. The woman saw her chance to grab them and did so. Her face showed a mixture of relief and exhaustion. It’s amazing what a lifeguard can do. Amazing.
I must admit I have abused these powers once or twice, but for good reason. Some days I just don’t want to deal with anyone’s crap, so I whip out the sitting out card. This card for me is as good as a “get out of jail free” card in Monopoly. I get that giddy feeling whenever I use it. Like it is sly trick that everyone knows is there but they don’t think I will ever use it. Well, I do. There are certain children that annoy me. I try to ignore them, while obviously watching to make sure they don’t do anything too stupid. But there are days where they just push my buttons. There are so many ways that I can scream “WALK!”. My most recent example is of the twin boys who pretend that they can’t hear me. Really, its super cute how they jog around the pool at half speed and slam their bodies into the water, only to go under right when I realize that they might have crushed their skulls against the side of the pool. They obviously don’t see this, nor do they care. So instead of my usual ignoring-until-they-get-hurt plan, (that works miracles) I decided to pull the kid out the water and give him a talking to. As he was climbing out of the pool I said “Hey, Kevin.” He glanced up, frozen in mid-climb to stare at me. He either wondered how I knew his name or why he was about to get into trouble. “ Listen. I have told you not to run. If you do it one more time, you will sit out. Do you understand?” He looked at me not moving. I asked again, “Do you understand?” He nodded and swam gloomily away. Maybe I shouldn’t of used my quiet harsh tone with him, but you know what: some kids need it.
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