If you’re like me, you’re probably deathly afraid of badgers. But that’s not important right now.
Don’t think for a second that I'm trying to downplay the longterm threat that badgers pose to humanity. Along with maintaining constant vigilance to guard against unprovoked badger attacks, there is another looming foe we must deal with: summer is finally upon us, and it’s freaking hot outside.
Unlike other animals who’ve adapt to the changing seasons with shedding of winter coats or migration to more pleasant climes, the only adaptation humans have made to cope with the changing seasons is to complain bitterly. Often these complaints include references to how the freaking heat of this summer compares to the freaking hot summers of years past. At some key point in our evolutionary process, certain people became so sick of hearing everyone complain about the freaking heat that they invented the public swimming pool just to shut them up. They also invented home pools for their personal use so that they wouldn’t have to put up with people complaining about the temperature of the water.
Unless you’re one of the lucky ones with a pool in your back yard, more than likely you will find yourself making a trek to a communal water facility this summer. And while each of these facilities generally post a list of important pool safety tips (i.e. no running, no drowning), there are a few unwritten precautions one must adhere to in order to make this summer’s trips to the public pool safe and enjoyable:
Arrive early - Even though the heat of the mid afternoon sun is the most unbearable, it’s best to arrive at the community pool hours before it gets so hot that everyone else gets the notion that a trip to the pool is a good idea. This will allow you to enjoy the facilities hours before the pool gets overcrowded. And it will get overcrowded; most communities set the maximum occupancy of their swimming facilities by the following ratio: 1 swimmer per 1 gallon of water. Since you’ll have no guarantee that your particular gallon will give you ready access to the surface for oxygen, it’s best to be out of the pool before it gets this crowded.
Keep your mouth closed at all times - Whether you’re in the water or not, it’s best to keep your mouth closed when visiting the local pool. In fact, you should probably wear ear and nose plugs to be on the safe side. Pool water, despite looking like water and behaving like water, contains less water than you’d think. To prove this, I had my crack investigative team pull a sample of water from the local pool for analysis. The breakdown? 74.5% “WATER”, 8% “CHLORINE”, 17.5% “NOT WATER”. The “NOT WATER” components were broken down into more specific categories, but the technician is too busy throwing up in the corner to read the results.
Wear goggles - This goes hand in hand with the mouth closed point made above. Besides protecting your eyes from the potential biohazards teeming in the water, goggles will also protect your eyes from the high chlorine content in the water. Prolonged exposure to the hyperchlorinated water of the community pool can permanently bleach the color out of your pupils.
Avoid the high dive - Please, this one is for your own safety. Unless you’re an Olympic athlete preparing for a diving invitational, you have no business climbing up to the high board. Besides, you’re not going to dive anyways since you heard that rumor about some kid breaking his neck diving off the high dive (every pool has this rumor). Instead of diving, you’ll just do the standard walk the plank/feet first drop into the water from ten feet. This is much safer than diving, but the force of your entry into the water will result in an unwanted pool water colonic irrigation upon impact, which is even less pleasant than it sounds (also another good reason to keep the mouth and eyes protected while in the pool). So do yourself and all the other pool patrons a favor and stick to the cannonballs off the low board.
Hopefully these tips will prepare you for your inevitable trip to the community pool this summer. While this information should enable you to relax a little more while cooling off by the pool, you probably shouldn’t let your guard down too much.
After all, badgers are excellent swimmers.
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Comments: 36
I was in the woods early this morning and there were badgers clustered around a monitor reading your article and chuckling when they got to words like "long term threat."
I know your heart is in the right place but I'm afraid your article may only have motivated the badgers to organize and set up more badger terrorist training camps.
That's it for me. Have a good day and, folks, be careful out there.
P.S. Needless to say, the community pool exposé was delightful.
Rivers, bays, and lakes may be a little cleaner than your standard community pool, but you are making yourself more vulnerable for unprovoked badger attacks.
John, In the near future we'll go into further detail as to the dangers badgers pose.
yeah, wading in the river.
Kidding.
2. since I was about 9 years old, I've avoided one community pool after being groped - yuck
3. the pool across the street from me, while tempting, just hired one of my long-term students as a lifeguard. Me in a bathing suit is NOT something I want to share with students!
But what a great read.
pools. I will take the clear cold mountain stream, I
can see to the rocky bottem and these streams are
not over crowded. Just a bunch of the teens and a
couple of adults for supervision, a picnic lunch makes
a fun day at the stream! Badger, a weasle,burrowing
animal can be vicious protecting their young.
If you are talking about Wisconsin badgers be afraid......be VERY afraid....
Oh don't look at me like that missy, you know you still love me! Besides, I know to put my money on you over badgers anyday...
I watched it for, like, a whole minute. Of course I am still trembling. Scarier than anything I've seen ever.
Since ol' Chris here went and tipped off the badgers (did you think they can't read???) I am proposing a group pistol which I will keep and if they come....I should say WHEN they come....somebody has to do the dirty work. And I'm not kidding, badgers are terrifying and possibly the worst-mannered mammals in existence (I do not have a source for that).
Now, I'll keep the pistol, like I said, but somebody else has to fire it. Perhaps TJ here, the one who gave us the horror film (Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger MUSHROOM!!!!) would like to be the designated shooter. Let's get a background check on him and get busy because God knows those freaking badgers read your article, Chris, and I do not feel safe. We need a plan and we need it now.
And in the future, do not antagonize rodents you don't know. Say what you will about mice, you know ME. But it would be unbelievable if you knew a badger personally.
I don't think anybody really knows a badger, ever.
Okay, let's get it going, folks. We're in danger.
Yeah Yeah Lisa....keep it up and I'll set a badger on your tail!
Badgers are easy to tame. Just scratch behind the ears and give them a kiss on the nose!
I used to be one of the lucky ones with the pool in my back yard. But since we moved houses, my father has expressed a very pointed interest in keeping our new house "pool free". It's rather annoying, but since I'll be gone after this summer, I've no right to object and my poor little brother is stuck.
However, being as this means I've no longer got a way to privately enjoy the luxury that came with my own swimming pool, I was wholly delighted to read about your public swimming pool tips. They were helpful and much needed. =) Thank you for your wonderful insight.
And if you think badgers are bad, you should try your hand at a mother groundhog who won't leave your backyard because she insists upon birthing her young there... And after birthing 3 YOUNG GROUNDHOGS gets even more ferocious. At the old neighborhood, I could've just shot it. Here, the houses are too close.... *shudders* I'm worried they're going to try to invade the house next....
people size catfish (they usually don't associate with people). Our river also has
beaver, muskrat, black snakes(not mocassins), ducks, geese, gulls, eagles, kingfishers, and bank swallows. None of the wildlife really bother swimmers. I believe swimmers in our river are most threatened by boaters and skiers.
Not badgers, Chris, I believe your fear of badgers maybe a phobia.
I've never seen a badger. But the badger/mushroom/snake cartoon is good for torturing my friends with. :)
I for one HATE the public pools. The ammount of chlorine makes my chest hurt. My daughter went for a week of survival swim lessons at school, and was sick for almost two weeks with bad chest aches and her throat burning like mad.
TJ- I first watched and heard the Badger song FOREVER ago. OK it was some odd 5 years ago or so, seems like forever.
Anyway, the good news is 80% of Enzed lived less than 20km from a beach, so public pools mostly redundant anyway, unless you're allergic to salt water, sand, sharks, or being laughed at by nubile young women in bikinis.
More good news: we don't have badgers. I believe a few tried sneaking into the country on tourist visas but were arrested by customs whe they tried to bite the drug-sniffing dogs.
The bad news: it's freaking *winter* here, and I'm freezing my a**e off reading on Gather about lovely summer afternoons at public pools and forest fires in Taho.
LOL!!!