i prefer imaginary men
i hate to say it, but my job really sucks. of course i would never tell my boss that, but it's the truth. teaching lessons in the summer may be a different matter (and that's a big maybe), but teaching in the fall no-doubt-hands-down bites the big one. the hours are bad, the pay isn't enough, the pool is too cold, and the parents of these kids treat us like we're disposable objects. use us once, crumple us up, toss us in the can. matt, brittany, sandra and i all share this opinion. matt even tried to quit at the end of last session but jenny wouldn't let him. (how can you not let someone quit a job? i mean, what did she do, blackmail him?)so today we're at work and the sky was looking pretty cloudy, and on the off chance that i wouldn't jinx us all, i said "it looks like it might rain." i said this in the presence of my boss, who was only stopping by for a few minutes, so i had to make sure and say it in a half-nonchalant, half-"oh rats we won't be able to have lessons" kind of tone. jenny gave the sky a glance and said, "yeah it just might."
it's not like it matters to her -- she gets paid to sit around the office and do nothing. she's the director of the aquatic program and she probably has not set foot in a pool for the last ten years. a little ironic, don't you think?
jenny left and the rest of the instructors and i were sitting there waiting for 5:30 to roll around, when matt suddenly looks at me and goes, "we need to make a rain turtle."
the boy is a sheer genius.
all summer at morning lessons we had this deal where, if it was the middle of a session and we all absolutely hated our existences due to the stress factor of our job, matt would sneak over to the garden next to the pavilion at the pool and draw a turtle in the dirt. then everyone who wished for rain -- which was, well, everyone -- would go and spit on it. this is old school lifeguard/WSI stuff.
the funny thing is, while i don't believe in superstitious things of this sort, our rain turtles worked every time. it would storm so bad that we wouldn't even be able to get into the water at all for our lessons. one time we made our rain turtle in the morning and, although no rain came then, it poured during our night lessons that same day. needless to say, all of the college station WSI's have great faith in the power of the rain turtle.
being doomed to another evening of freezing our bums off while making not enough mula to teach hyperactive children, a rain turtle sounded like a great idea. jenny was nowhere around by this point, and therefore it wouldn't hurt to at least try.
matt drew the turtle in one of the flowerbeds, and all four WSI's, including myself, took our share hocking on it. even the lifeguards joined in. (their job is possibly even worse than ours.) 5:30 came and though the clouds were dark, no rain fell. 6:00 came; still no rain. at the 6:30 class, i could literally smell rain in the air, but no rain fell. not a single drop.
our rain turtle had failed us. i was in a sad, sad state of mind.
after work had dragged itself out as long as it possibly could, and as i was driving out to john's house, i stopped at the gas station to fill up. it was only then that i noticed the raindrops beading the windshield of my car.
the rain turtle didn't fail us after all. he was just a little bit too late to do us any freakin good.