Lifeguard!

There is a story that accompanies this blurry photo of me and my lifeguard certification card.

I have been in lifeguard classes all week. This means 4-9 pm M-F and 9-1 today, Saturday. I am exhausted and bruised.

I swim pretty regularly at the VTC pool. Since the pool is at a school most of the lifeguards are students. Since they are students they mostly go home for school breaks which means getting lifeguards to cover the pool during vacations is hard or impossible. I've been annoyed in the past by driving the 20 min to get to the pool and finding the door locked (they're not real great about notification either). I bitched a little and the guy who runs the pool said "well, you can get certified and then you can work when the students are gone, maybe you can get a few more non-students too"

So, the class was five students -- two still in high school -- and one other guy about my age and me. The swimming part I was pretty good at. I'm not bad at the First Aid and CPR parts, though both have changed dramatically since I last took them. I was decent at shallow water rescues, and okay at being a shallow water drowner and having someone else rescue me. What was really hard was deep water drowning and drowners. I get a little panicky when I'm stuck underwater. I can hold my breath a decent amount of time, but when you're trying to fake having a spinal injury and someone's got their hands around your neck and is slooooooowly bringing you to the surface, well that's a bit of a challenge.

In my typical fashion I was worried that I might not pass. My worries were unfounded. I got my card, got back in the pool and swam half a mile, and now I intend to sleep for the rest of the holiday weekend.