Lifeguards and peanut butter crackers

So there I was.....

What can I say? I always felt that really great adventure stories started out with, "So there I was...."

So there I was driving across the base to buy the wife some phone cards. Well, that's not exactly true. It was to buy the wife and her friend some phone cards. I seen a young person sitting in the Red Cross parking lot under a tree smoking a cigarette. They had on a red shirt that said LIFE GUARD. Now were they a life guard? Maybe yes and maybe no. It certianly seems feasable.

I got to thinking, "I don't know of too many life guards who are smokers." I always thought that they would need stamina to swim out, grab ahold of your drowning carcass, and haul you back to shore. And then have enough breath left to mouth to mouth you. Yep, that's what I always thought.

Of course, my thoughts are never that simple. 'Cause next I got to thinking, "Well....I wonder what somebody would think if they came to and the lifeguard mouth to mouthing them had smokers breath?" I mean I would think they wouldn't be too upset, knowing that they could be dead instead of just breathing first hand smoke second hand. But still I could hear the whiny, nasaly voice saying, "Eeewwww! I swear, it was just like having your life saved by licking an ashtray. Better I should just stay dead."

But no, wait. There is of course more. Because next thing that popped into my mind was, "OK, say the lifeguard's not a smoker. But what if he's sitting on his big, tall chair, shooting the breeze with his friend and eating some of them cheese and peanut butter snack crackers?" Yeah, that'd suck. Because he hears you out in the ocean, flailing wildly and hollering "Halp!! Halp!! I be can't swimming good. I'm taking on water in my mouf. Somebody HEELLLPPP me!" (OK, that was a dramatization. Your actual verbage may vary.)

What I envisioned was Joe Studly-man Lifeguard leaping out of his chair and high tailing it towards the ocean. Running as fast as he can. Until he sucks cracker crumbs down his throat, collapses in the calf-deep surf gasping for air, takes on ocean water his ownself because of the gasping for breath. Then the sucker dies. Right in front of you not 30 yards away. Yeah, that'd suck. Especially when you realized that with him dead you'd be drowned in a couple of minutes your ownself.

All this just because I saw somebody in a LIFE GUARD shirt smoking a cigarette.

Zoisite, out
Travelin' Ed