{if only you saw would i could see}

Remember back last summer when I wrote a kindly worded letter to the parents at my pool? Well, I've done it again. Version 2.0. One year later (and in case you're interested in the original you can read it here)


Dear Parents at The Pool 2.0,

Remember how I'm so incredibly baby hungry, it hurts? The next child that I see sleeping alone on the deck will be taken as my own. A car seat isn't dead bolted to the ground, some body could just come along and pick it up. And it might be me.

Please continue to yell at me about having to go down the slide before your four year old. I am really enjoying it. Just keep in mind that if you throw them down the slide and they drown before you get there, that's your bad.

And while you're yelling, make sure to let us know how angry it makes you that we clear the pool every hour for 5 minutes to give you a chance to take your kid to the bathroom and for us to make sure there isn't anything mysterious floating around in there (i.e. poops). And when we have to close the pool for the rest of the day because someone didn't take advantage of such breaks, please yell some more.

Get out all your anger. Right here. At me.

When you over hear guards talking about the a-hole at the pool and you know you're being a d-bag, just assume we're talking about you. Because we are. After all, we do talk about you and all the dumb things you and your children do.

If we know your kids name it's for one of three reasons: 1. they spend too much time at the pool. 2. they are incredibly charming and will make sweet talk with the guards to get what they want. 3. they have been in our swim lesson class. Don't be alarmed, we aren't creepy stalkers.

But speaking of creepy stalkers, if you knew what type of adults come to the pool for no particular reason you would never drop your kids off to swim alone. Ever. Again.

That too big one piece swim suit you've got your little girl in is definitely more immodest than the two piece that fits the girl sitting next to her.

The naked pinup girl tattoo you have on your back makes you look incredibly awesome. Like a real good, upstanding citizen. And if we're staring at you every time you come past us in the lazy river, 9 times out of 10 it's because we're trying to figure out what else you have inked on your body.

If we blow our whistle and point at your children don't just stand there like a nincampoop. Make them stop climbing up the slide/going over the wall/hanging on the rope/drowning. 

When your kid has the privilege of getting saved three times in two weeks please stop telling us to stop going in after them and that they know how to swim. No, clearly they don't. And you need to pay better attention.

Don't lie about your kids age just so they get a big kid wrist band. We'll figure out sooner than later how old they really are. Then things really won't be pretty.

Life jackets are not baby sitters. Stop treating them as such.

We will not recognize you and your children in public, but if you approach us first we eventually will figure it out. If you took off your clothes we would remember a lot faster.

And if I hear another child (particularly in swim lessons) say that they can't do something, that they don't know how, that they are not good at it, that they are just a little baby/scaredy cat, they don't know how to do anything right, I will come after you. The parent. Stop teaching your kids before they are even 5 that they aren't good at something. They are 5. Not bad. Remember that.

Love/your local Life Savers.