For All the Lifeguards in Training

So I was at the beach sometime recently…and I saw a couple things that confused me so I just wanted to put them out there. If I were smarter I’d be able to make my observation in iambic pentameter and all that jazz (umm, TE, if you’re reading this, your poetry skills are crazy wicked good). Anyway, mine aren’t.

So, Thing I Saw #1: Man Wearing Underwear. Not boxers dude, straight up tightie-whities. And he had gone swimming or at least just sweat through them so they were almost tightie-skinnies and it was seriously icky. Now mon petite frere told me he hates Santa Monica beach cuz it’s dirty and cited the one time he saw a homeless guy swimming in his tighties. That is excusable. You see, if you are homeless you most likely don’t have a very big wardrobe, and you need to swim, I respect that, so go for it. Now you, guy sitting next to me on beach in your underwear, you have no excuse. You were wearing Oakleys, had a full towel/umbrella/sun block/book spread and I note that your wife was well-attired in a proper if not somewhat stylish bandeau style bikini.

It reminds me of this one woman at the pool I used to lifeguard at who would wear a black strapless bra to lay out in all the time. It was a country club for heaven’s sake. Keep you skivvies in your clothes madam! You see, she thought no one would notice, but it was the little rosebud between her cups that called her out.

Now considering I just mentioned lifeguarding, this is a perfect segue to Thing I Saw #2: “Junior Lifeguards in Training.” What the f. I sit down, and there is this whole gaggle of like, little kids playing lifeguard practice, doing all that swimming and running around stuff, cuz you know they are Junior Beach Lifeguards in Training, just to clarify. Now these kids could not have been older than like 12. I say this with certainty, b/c both the boys and girls were still considerably shorter than me, and nowadays I’m pretty much outsized by kids by the time they are like, oh, 14. Anyway, I’m fairly certain you have to be at least 16 to guard. Does it take 4 years of practice to be a lifeguard? I would say, no.

If I were talking to these junior lifeguards in training, here’s the advice I’d give them:

1) Tanning – Know your shit. Pick your preferred brand of lotion, and be sure to have your higher spf treatment and your lower spf treatment. Experiment with lotions, oils, dry oils, spray formulas, etc. Remember that practice makes perfect and a lovely shade of bronze, that is even all around, takes a lot of hard hours in the sun.

2) Authority – Pretend like you totally have it. Get really good at telling kids to “Stop running!!” and “Get off the lane lines!!” Another good phrase to have in your vocab is “Hey, stop that!” as it comes in handy quite frequently. Also, develop a really good swagger to use when you walk out of the guard cage and up to your tower stand. Especially if you’re 5’2” and really look completely un-authoritative

3) The Whistle – Learn how to use it. This does not only apply to when you blow it for adult swim, but for how you use it as an accessory of the job. It’s very important that you’re really good at twirling it in very creative ways, and very quickly. I recommend that if you have a choice of color for the neck lanyard that you select red. Red screams “lifeguard.”

4) Kids – Generally a pain in the ass. They are the reason that when you’re sitting in the chair you can’t just gossip on your walky-talky with the other guards about that crazy in her black strapless bra but rather have to watch out for their lives. The important piece of advice here is to treat at least a handful of them very nicely so you can get yourself a little fan club. Michelle and Maddy were my two key members. They do things like grab you Diet Cokes and French fries from the snack bar and go search the entire Olympic-sized pool for your tiny little butterfly earring (dude they were hot when I was 16) when it falls out. They will even paint pen your whistle so your key accessory looks extra wicked cool.

5) Chair Strapping – Don’t ever do it. I got suckered into starting early once and restrapping the deck chairs. This involves using a hot air gun thing and melting rubber straps and then touching the burning things with your bare hands and pulling on them to stretch them until your back wants to give out. It’s very tiresome, very not glamorous, and generally atrocious. Abort! Abort! A worse job than when I worked at Best Friends Kennel and was a doggie play time associate.

Anyway, I need to go get a mani. I am leaving for a wedding tomorrow morning and must get myself physically prepared. Expect stories.