Lakeland and I went to a water park last week. Just thought I'd share the following:
- There are 8,000 hardworking lifeguards constantly hyperventilating into their whistles, and there is not one kid in the place who could give two shits. I'm serious. Kids are oblivious to those chirping whistles as well as every single posted rule. They effectively flip those lifeguards their mini middle fingers the moment before they dive into the slide upside down and face first (a highly illegal maneuver and oft broken water park rule, by my observation).
- At least 50% of the moms I saw are replicas of my favorite U.S. Olympic beach volleyball team, Kerri Walsh and Misty May. Bronzed. Abs. More abs. Cute, round butts. And lots of braided high ponytails with visors. I contemplated this while leisurely chomping on an $8 cardboard bucket full of fries.
- The wave pool. Oh, the wave pool. (In case you are unaware, a wave pool is a giant pool that intermittently turns into a violent tsunami before calming down to its original state.) These pools contain a billion bodies just senselessly bouncing off one another. They are so packed full of people in sustained motion that if you saw it from an airplane, it'd look like a giant, wildly colored beehive. So the deal is, if you are responsible for a kid under 4 feet tall, you get delegated (by whistle) to the part of the wave pool that is two and a half feet deep. Which is precisely the point where the waves break and absolutely crush the little kids to smithereens. These poor, tiny people go from having the grandest time frolicking in calm, waist deep water, to half-drowning while taking severe beatings by all of the big kids that wash up with the waves. Repeatedly. Like...every 30 seconds. I saw several kiddos get creamed by waves/big kids, scraping the joy right off their faces and onto the concrete bottom of the pool. They'd pop up, bloody and screaming, reaching for the hands (perched on the shapely hips) of their professional volleyball player mothers.
- And it's not hazardous for just the kids. I was, at all times, poised in a defensive position...soft kneed, hands advanced, fingers splayed in anticipation of a takeout. When the waves stopped trying to murder the children, I found myself instantly relieved that my knees didn't get blown out by some errant kid flying through on a tube.
- I swear, it's places like this where adult sensibility and reason fly right off the handle. Water parks, theme parks, carnivals, zoos, funerals, airports...these are the places where parents go and Absolutely. Lose. Their. Shit. I saw this dad, who I bet isn't a total disaster on most days, but on this day...he was a nightmare. He had three boys with him, young teens maybe. I didn't see what led him to throw his hands in the air and begin a tirade that would have made the father from "A Christmas Story" proud, but the dude had zero qualms about using seriously inappropriate language at a decibel level that couldn't be ignored. Additionally, I saw several women who, while waiting (bare-footed in standing sludge) in a stagnant line at the concessions, tired children slung across their bodies, rip apart concession staff and/or equally uncomfortable and frustrated women. I think the only thing that brought these people back to reality from basic survival mode was the warble of a dozen whistles. So, as it turned out, all those lifeguards weren't wasting their breath.
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