That was the exit advice to the whole swim class tonight. Lie on your belly on your bed without a pillow. Stretch your arms overhead in a streamline and count to 5.

I watched as my son stretched his arms in front of himself, like superman.

He has a ways to go.

Here’s what not to do with those trained to save your life:

5. Stand beside their perch and strike up a conversation. They should be paying full attention to the pool.

4. Stand in front of them, shouting, “look at me!”

3. Ask ‘why?’ if she’s enforcing the rules that no one under age 14 can swim laps.

2. Sneak goggles that she has forbidden you to wear. (see #3).

And, the #1 thing not to do to a lifeguard: Tell her to go get you something because she’s the lifeguard. If she’s dumb enough to heed you, you or someone you love could drown.

Not that anyone has ever done any of these things. It’s clearly hypothetical. Or not.

I recently read this mildly amusing post about a teen swimming movie idea.

Having recently lost my gig as a movie/tv critic, I’m itching to review something, albeit a mythical project.

Mike Gustafson, the author is pitching this idea of an Animal House swim team movie. His pitch sounds more like revenge of the nerds to me.

Let’s look at this. Animal House was completely spastic, with everything going in different directions at once. There was silly stuff, absurd stuff, sarcastic humor, nuanced humor, a celebration of the comedic form really. And it had John Belushi at his sloppiest most animalistic form. A classic insane movie.

Revenge of the Nerds wasn’t bad, but it was a lightweight 80s jiggle comedy. It had the outcast frat element, the using black people as comedic relief element, and the triumph of the underdog element, but it all had a rather cheap teen sex flick patina over the whole thing. It just never leapt to the absurd, like Animal House does repeatedly.

That comparison in your mind, imagine a teen sports flick where the outcasts were the swim team, in this case two super nerds find they can impress the girls by going out for any sports team, and the swim team is the only that will accept them. Hello? Lambda Lambda Lambda, the disbanded black fraternity that accepted the Nerds? The swim team is supposed to be over the top weird like animal house, but from the description, I kept imaging Booger and crew.

Hippy Swim Coach? Ok. Maybe funny. Aaron Piersol cameo portraying said hippy coach? Ok? Can he act? Might be better to milk Phelps, who is much more recognizable, idk.

The ending Gustafson comes up with is totally Disney channel. The real jocks win, but just by a point, and they forfeit their victory for the underdogs. See, the football team isn’t really jerks, after all. Not sneering, nasty bad guys like in both Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds.

Hold up, wait a minute! The Disney Channel has already made a swim team movie: The Thirteenth Year. Did you see that 1999 movie about the kid who discovers he’s a merman in his 13th year? Maybe you can catch it on The Disney Channel some time. I can’t find it on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon.

Of course, for my money, the best teen swim movie has already been made: Pride. Click the link, and enjoy one of Bernie Mack’s last performances today. Hint: keep your kleenex nearby.

I have too much crap hanging from my keychain. I have a dilapidated key sized library card on there. I’ve never scanned it. Even once. I used to have 4 Y cards on there, too. I gave 2 of them to my daughter when she and her brother went out of town. Because you never know when you’ll find yourself at the Y.

Except I do that stuff intentionally. When my daughter goes in to work, I slip in the pool and have a swim as often as I can. When my son has his Chinese lesson? I swim.

How could I do that if I left my chunky keychain at home?

Do you slip in your laps during the course of a busy day?

My daughter got a call from a neighborhood pool this summer. They lost a lot of lifeguards at the end of the season and were hiring. Was she interested?

No problem; she needed the hours with college starting soon. She found herself working everyday for a week at the outdoor pool. Nobody who didn’t live in the neighborhood could swim there. Do you have any idea how hard it was to drop her off on a hot day? The kids and I literally salivated at that refreshing looking water.

The only drawback I could see? The sun! I’m sure that’s a whole different black folks don’t swim issue–they’re scared of getting too black. We have too many hangups, y’all.

Last week, I checked the analytics on this site, and saw that one person had come to read it.
Then I saw a friend I haven’t seen in weeks.
“You went to Lake Michigan?” She asked.
So that’s the one, I thought.

Lurker.