Earthquake?

 

The blast of the whistle screams at me from above. Initially, I ignore it. They’ve been having lifeguard training at Kennedy High Pool for weeks now. Always blowing the whistle. Throwing bricks in the water. Lifeguards in training jumping in to save the brick.

            It’s alarming and distracting. And meaningless as far as what a whistle should mean: someone is in trouble and get in and save them. Or danger danger! There’s a shark in the pool!

            So, today, a calm and blissful Saturday morning with no screaming kids in swim lessons and my own quiet lane, when I hear the whistle blast, I don’t stop swimming.

            It screams again. This time accompanied by Juan’s yelling: “EVERYONE OUT OF THE POOL! NOW!!!! OUT OF THE POOL!”

            I stop swimming, stand in the shallow sun glittering water and stare up at him. I’d just gotten in 3 minutes ago. There was still a little less than an hour left to swim. What gives?

            “What’s going on?” I ask now, shaking my head. I do NOT want to get out. I can’t see what the reason would be, but the other few people that are swimming are heaving themselves out of the pool and onto the deck.

            “Earthquake,” Juan announces.

            “Are you serious?” I ask.

            “Yeah, everyone has to get out of the pool for 30 minutes.”

            “I didn’t feel anything,” I start to argue. I really need to swim. I had missed the day before. There were no kids in the pool today. I had my own lane. Besides! I had just gotten in! What good does swimming for 3 minutes do?

            Nothing. Except for extreme frustration!

            “Yeah, well, trust me,” Juan says in answer to my not feeling anything, “it happened. We all felt it here on the deck.”

            I climb out of the pool, using the ladder, shaking in anger. I can’t yell at anyone. I can’t blame the lifeguard. If there really was an earthquake? Maybe if you’re swimming you can’t feel it? Evidently.

            But as I glance back at the beautiful empty pool, I’m livid. Why oh why? What are the chances of being in the pool when an earthquake happens? And to not even feel it?

            It feels so WRONG!

            “Why 30 minutes?” I ask another guard whom I don’t know. He’s young (they mostly all are) and cute—(again, they mostly all are) with a blonde streak through his shiny hair. “Is there some sort of evidence around this time limit to stay out?”

            He looks at me like I’m insane. “There must be….” he says softly, walking away from me.

            “You guys can come back and swim in 30 minutes,” Juan is announcing now, “but by then the pool will only be open for 15 more minutes. So, we can give you a FREE swim today and sorry about that.”

            “A free swim tomorrow doesn’t do me any good today,” I mutter under my breath, but probably a little too loudly.

            “We can have a pool party! We can go take showers for 30 minutes. Wash our hair. Sing and dance!” Wendy giggles, shaking her thick dark mass of hair in wild anticipation of the pool party.

            I can’t help but laugh. She isn’t fazed by being kicked out of the pool by a non-felt earthquake.

            And what would happen to us anyway if we stayed in the pool? It’s not like a tsunami is gonna sweep us away. Or a huge crack is going to appear in the bottom of the pool and we’ll be sucked under the concrete earth into a huge chasm of molten lava!

            I head into the locker room, behind Wendy, who’s still going on about the pool party to LS, who has given me a sweet look of empathy about being kicked out of the pool.

            “Aren’t you frustrated?” I ask her as we head into the showers.

            “I can’t complain,” she admitted. “I did swim for 3 hours at the Plunge yesterday!”

            “3 hours!” I can’t wrap my head around this right now. I just know that today I only got 3 minutes in the pool.

            And damn! I sure can complain!

            There’s nothing more frustrating than a Thwarted Swim. Esp if it’s thwarted by an imaginary earthquake.

            I still don’t believe it.

            I hear the whistle again. Or is it just my imagination?

            As I dry off after my shower, I sigh VERY loudly. I’ll just have to go for a walk. At least there won’t be any whistles blaring at me in my neighborhood.

            Unless, of course, there’s another earthquake?