Ah, summer. It reminds me of a song we used to sing in Primary when I was a kid:
(Well, okay. I can't really remember the words, but they went something like this.)
Oh, what do you do in the summertime when all the trees are green? Do you sit by a stream or lazily dream or watch as the clouds float by? Is that what you do? So do I!
I sit by the pool and a) ruin people's fun, b) keep them from killing themselves or someone they love or c) both.
Yes, a lifeguard's lot is not a happy one. Despite the impression that "Baywatch" may have given you, being a lifeguard is actually a pretty dull job most of the time. It involves a level of attention that has to be high enough to notice what's going on in your area, but not so focused that you cease taking in the whole picture.
Consequently, guards come up with various ways of keeping their minds active while on duty. One of the methods that's actually suggested in the literature is to imagine rescue scenarios involving the people currently under your watch.
That 70-ish lap swimmer breathing hard at the end of each lap? Heart attack.
That irritating frat boy who keeps diving headfirst into shallow water no matter how many times you tell him not to? TWEEET!!! Broken neck.
That snot-nosed kid who likes to float motionless at the surface for an excruciating amount of time? Drowning.
Doing this sort of thing not only helps you constantly review your skills, but it keeps your attention at just about the right level.
But things have taken a bit of a morbid turn in my case.
Since I'm also an instructor for various training courses, I have to review skills in my head almost constantly just to keep them all straight. This has lead me to imagine emergency scenarios almost everywhere. At school. At church. On road trips.
So, I guess what I'm asking is: Does this make me paranoid? Or just a little unbalanced?
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