If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck....OR...If the pool is empty, with a closed sign and there is no lifeguard...

It has been two summers since I told myself I would keep up a blog...and you can see how well that went. I have since graduated from college and completed a year of graduate school to find myself life guarding once again in an effort to take advantage of my (hopefully) last hourly wage job. This summer, yet again, boredom has led me to think that my musings may be amusing to others as well. So, here we go "again."

I work at the university pool which has an Olympic size competition pool and a smaller, much warmer dive pool. Priority is given to the Division I athletes of the University so most of the time only the dive pool is open because they are in the competition pool, but the schedule varies. We do not life guard for the athletes, only the recreational swimmers, and no athlete can be in an unguarded pool without a coach. This leads me to my point.

I like to think that people have a decent amount of common sense, especially considering we are at a university and no one under the age of 16 can use our pool. That being said, the questions I receive actually pain me. Some examples:

(While I am in the tower. People are in the pool. Other pool is empty and closed.)
"Is this pool open?"
"Can I go for a swim?"
(pointing toward other pool) "Can I swim there?"

(What goes through my head)
"No...I'm actually just sitting here watching these people swim for fun. We aren't open. In fact, those aren't actually other people."
"Yeah....actually, today just isn't your day...maybe come back tomorrow?"

Ok, so the schedule can be confusing. Swim team, swim camps, water polo soirees...it is a crapshoot as to whether or not the competition pool is open. We also keep the "pool closed" sign up when USC sponsored things are using the pool, so I SUPPOSE the sign is a little misleading. HOWEVER. Here are some signs that the non-open pool is, in fact, not open to you:

1) There is a pool closed sign 2) There is no lifeguard 3) A tall serbian man is cursing out water polo players 4) there are 4+ people to a lane swimming very quickly 5) there is a man/woman shouting swim sets into a megaphone and 6) THERE IS NO LIFEGUARD

Now, do not get me wrong here, I do appreciate that these people have the decency to ask as opposed to the people who just hop into an empty un-lifeguarded pool. When this happens, I suppress the urge to throw kickboards at the person. My other suggestion to prevent this from happening is placing a small, electronic device into the pool. That'll condition you never to swim alone. However, despite the entertainment of the aforementioned tactics, I would think simple logic would tell you that if you had to choose between an empty pool with no one in it and a pool with swimmers and a lifeguard you would choose the latter. It's basic water safety, really. I think next time I'm guarding a full, open pool and someone asked me if the pool is open I will simply reply "what pool?"