Giddy with Glee

“Excuse me,” PP’s on the pool deck, ready to go: cap and mask on, fins in hand, but yet....what's up with all the goddamn families in the pool still?

The spaced out but Frazzled Lifeguard gives her a tired smile (How can you be spaced out and frazzled? The Hilltopia lifeguards have this persona down to a science.)

“Hi,” FL manages.
“I thought that it was lap swimming at 4:30.” PP glances at the still mayhem-filled side of the pool where several families are doing their usual screaming Aquatic Antics. Shit. She’d driven up here specially at 4 in the stupid stop and go rush hour traffic so that she could avoid this Pool Chaos and now?

“Oh!” Frazzled Lifeguard looks worried, “Is that what the schedule says? I’m new.”
PP grins. “Yeah, that’s what the schedule says. Lap swimming from 4:30-7:40.”
“Okay, well, thanks for letting me know.”

FL gets up off her perch and starts to instruct the families to clear the water.
PP’s grin widens.
Such power!
All she had to do was inform the lifeguard that the schedule said it was lap swimmers time and then voila! Out with the families!

She loved it!

The families, however, did not.

PP watches in silent glee as they slowly climb out of the pool. Several parents sloshing over to read the posted schedule and shaking their heads.

YAHOOO!!! PP shouts to herself as she helps FL move the lane line over, almost smashing a slow to get out floating child with the line.

It was tempting to brain the little bugger.
But then it’d cry.
And then PP would feel bad.

Well, not too bad as she slipped her fins on and glided across the now clear lane. The water smooth and childfree.

Ahhhh.....

Why couldn’t it always be like this, she thought to herself as she turned at the wall to head back down the empty lane.

Maybe it could, she thought.

All she had to do was tell the lifeguard that it was lap swimming time and....

Oh but there was that damn schedule.

It worked for her this time, and her moment of Pool Clearance Power was Delicious, but in reality, she couldn’t make the schedule her schedule all of the time, could she?

Gleeful and Giddy, she watched as a mom and her kid approached the lifeguard. Were turned away.

Come back when it’s Rec Swim! PP thought. Read the goddamn schedule! She laughed, thinking how it was strange that the new lifeguard hadn't read the schedule before her shift. Or kept it right there next to her to double check throughout the day.

Thanks goodness she had PP to save her from Lifeguard Space out Dereliction of Duty she smiled to herself underwater, dolphin kicking with gleeful abandon. 4:30 on Fridays were Her Time. At least for now.

And that's all that matters!