Becoming.

I seem an unlikely candidate for lifeguarding. Short of peroxide out of a box, I am not anything close to what a normal person would consider blond. My sentences are not peppered with the words "dude," "gnarly," (I am unsure exactly how to spell this word, since I'm pretty sure most of my coworkers who use it are illiterate and it is written down infrequently), "sick," or "ill." Unless, of course, I am sick. The best part about all this is that ninety-five percent of what is said in lifeguard towers can be re-created with any combination of these four words. It's ill, dude.

I am perpetuating myths here, I think. My coworkers are sweet, if not a bit vapid, and like it or not, I am one of them. Sometimes I wonder how exactly I ended up where I am, and there's not really an easy answer. I joined junior lifeguards when I was twelve and someone told me that it was difficult to become a lifeguard. So I decided "screw you, I'm becoming a lifeguard." And then I did. I guess to a certain extent there was more to it than that. Being an overachiever meant that I spent most of my summer either in summer school so I could take AP classes and still graduate on time, or at the beach. It meant that I waded through two years of some of the worst government-sanctioned sexism I've ever experienced as an intern, helping run the junior lifeguard program. Ah, military and para-military organizations-- the last stronghold of sexism in government. But regardless-- these things aren't funny. They aren't even inspiring, so there's no need to harp on them. I spent four weeks-- eighty hours, ten hour days on the weekends-- being so cold I wanted to die. I cried on every lunch break. I've never been so stressed in my life. It was boot camp for lifeguards. It was miserable, and if I never have to go through it again it'll be too soon. Do I regret it? Not a bit. Is it difficult? For some, maybe not. But I can tell you this: in my academy, forty people started. Twenty were thrown out the first day for not making the first swim time cut. By the time the academy was over, we went from a class of forty to a class of fifteen.

So getting into that tower on the first day? That, my friends, is the most amazing feeling ever. It dims, but it never leaves. It's what makes it okay when a pasty land-whale of a Midwesterner trots out in a microkini and flirts with your coworker (who is trying very hard not to laugh). Ladies, just a tip-- they see the best of the best every day. If you aren't the best of the best, you're going to be laughed at. It's that simple. We have binoculars, and if they're interested, you will know. It's that feeling that stops you from laughing when fifteen minutes later, said land-whale lumbers out of the water as fast as her tree-trunks can carry her screeching at the top of her lungs about jellyfish. Then she decides she doesn't dare to brave the dangerous shallows any longer-- so she lays out on the beach (usually removing her already disturbingly tiny top), causing locals to run about in a panic, covering her with wet towels and trying to return her to the sea, thinking a whale has beached itself on the sand. And all the while-- you try not to laugh, while relishing your fantastic vantage point. Because you're a lifeguard-- and you're badass. Hell yes.