Hypochlorus Acid and Old Ladies

"So, Meredith, how's lifeguarding at the pool?"

It's easy. It's really, really easy, almost embarassingly so, and despite that I enjoy it. I think the hardest parts are getting up to be there at 5:45 AM and working the paleozoic cash register, which prints in purple ink and requires a key to turn on.

Every half hour I trade off guarding the indoor pool with Paul, a man in his sixties who reminds me of Hoo-Lan from My Teacher Glows in the Dark--in that he's about ear-level with me, not that he has blue skin. He is disarmingly friendly and drives a white scooter with "Roberta" on the license plate. The only people that come in that early are the swim team members that are training in the off-season and a gaggle of old women who slowly bob from one end of the pool to the other and talk about their gardens, recipes, and rashes. When I'm not guarding, I push a button on the register when people come in with their passes.

Open swim ends at 9, at which time the sixteen-year-old girl from La Plata who I work with, and myself, do "chores." I would have called it "pool maintenance" or something official-sounding like that, but she called it "chores" the first day and I thought it was cute, so "chores" it will remain. Today, I can say with pride that I have officially swabbed a deck--i.e, I sprayed a bleach mix on the deck of the pool, scrubbed with a broom, and then she hosed it off. I water plants. I wash windows. I also get to operate Carl, who is a remote-control robot that vacuums the bottoms of the pools. It's just as cool as it sounds--like driving a toy car, only for a purpose. They should market these things for kids to clean house with.

Chores end at 10:00 when the Arthritic Old Lady Class comes in. They stand in a circle in the pool and rotate their joints while talking about their gardens, recipes, and rashes. I trade off every half hour with the other girl and read in the first aid room when I'm not guarding. Knocking wood, no one in there will probably ever need rescuing. I'm officially done at 12, but they usually let me go about twenty minutes beforehand.

That's pretty much it. Even if I'm requested to do an awkward task, such as playing games at the Hunger Awareness Day Weiner Roast with children that had no interest in games, it only ends up in getting paid for standing around uncertainly for two hours while drinking free soda, getting my face painted, and talking to Amber and Jared, who were also recruited for the same purpose. On the flip side, this is probably the extent of any interesting stories.