Hangover

Dallenbachs

The car horn startled me and I woke up on the sofa. I knew it was Joe and his sister Patty giving me a ride to work. I could feel the hangover and I apparently slept in my guard trunks. I went into the bathroom and quickly brushed my teeth and headed out the door. They were in Patty’s Red Chrysler Convertible Starfire. I always liked that car and so did my brother Kevin as several years later he bought it from Patty. I think I slept the entire ride to Dallenbachs.

All the lifeguards had chores to do early in the morning and on that particular day Joe and I drew the short straws because we had to clean the bathrooms. We cleaned the boy’s bathroom first and headed into the girls. I started in the showers and Joe started in the stalls. We both were equipped with the latest and greatest cleaning tools; a hose. All of a sudden I heard a girl scream and Joe laughing. Joe yelled for me to “come see this”. As I came around the corner I saw Joe standing in front of the stall with the door wide open the hose pointed into the center of the stall. The girl in the stall was on the toilet peeing as Joe gave he a cold shower with the hose. I pulled the hose away from Joe only to witness Sherri soaked still peeing with her bikini bottoms around her ankles. I shut the door and asked her how she got in here as we weren’t open yet. She said she had to go really badly and they let her in. Joe and I must have both been back in the showers when she came in otherwise we would have seen her. I don’t want to say she was wicked embarrassed but she had a hard time making eye contact after that day.
Next we had to teach swim class. I’m sure the screaming sounds of 5-7 year old learning to swim will be good for my hangover. We did a lot of floating that morning. I managed to survive swim class only to find out I was guarding “Kiddy”. I don’t think I could have taken watching those screaming brats all day. I begged Tom Thorley if he would change with me and he saved my ass and agreed. Tom actually gave away the best guard position “the raft”. Dallenbachs had a raft out towards the middle of the lake and 20 yards away was a separate raft with life guard stand permanently affixed to the raft. There was always a lot of pushing and shoving on the raft with strict rules on violations. The first offense you had to get out of the lake and onto the lifeguards raft for a half hour, second offense an additional one hour and third offense you were kicked out for the day. These regulations were clearly posted and it was the raft guard’s duty to enforce them. I don’t know exactly how it started but when someone was being punished on the life guard’s raft they would occasionally ask permission to dip into the water to cool off. It was a reasonable request which was granted. Most of the life guards were guys and we did notice from our aerial perspective that when many of the teenage girls got on and off the raft it was quite revealing. In an effort to promote this behavior if female raft violators chose to jump up and down on one foot one hundred times they were exempt from the half hour rule and could return to the raft after completing the task. It was after all completely voluntary and provided entertainment for the troops so to speak. There were some violators like Barbara Catarina that would draw the attention of every teenage male within 100 yards. Being a life guard at that moment made it all worthwhile. Some violators would become regulars and would draw applause from the male audience. On that particular day Joe Willis’s girlfriend, Eileen, had to be punished for pushing someone off the raft. She chose the hop on one foot punishment to the delight of all the guys on the raft. While she was jumping up and down she noticed my toenails had been painted day glow pink and started to laugh. Now everyone on the raft knew and were laughing. I looked down at my feet and sure enough my toenails were bright pink. This didn’t help my hangover! So now I had to walk around the entire day listening to all the not so flattering comments! Apparently my sisters Colleen and Erin thought painting my toenails when I was passed out drunk would be funny!