A Sea of Blue Balls

After the kid was born and I started going to the mommy and me classes I learned one thing: Moms have a very dirty mind.

Or maybe I bring it out in them. Could be both. I’m going with both.

I realized this one morning when I was at a MyGym class. The teacher was having us jump around in circles. The mom next to me said

“some of us are getting dizzy.” and I said

“and some of us are still hung over.”

This got a crazy laugh. Way more than it merited, but I went with it. The more classes I attended, the more moms I met, the more adult conversations I got to have. I learned a lot from the moms, even the ones I didn’t like. One thing that always comes back to me is that most of us, if not all of us, pretty much turn into a pre-pubescent boys when we are with other moms.

Not ever in my life have I talked about bodily functions as much as after I had the kid. And I don’t mean just 2kicks’ bodily functions, because as it turns out, after you have a kid, everything in your body changes. From the way it looks to the way it functions and how we feel about it. Our brains change too.

The Science and Discovery Museum recently got a new exhibit about emergencies and rescuers. There’s a helicopter for kids to fly, two jet skies to rescue a drowning victim, a room filled with smoke to escape, a rock climbing wall, a news room stage complete with a “correspondent” game and four different types of fire extinguishers to put out different types of fire. But the number one ‘thing’ that all the kids want to play with and there’s always a line for is the pool of balls. You know what I’m talking about, it’s the same balls pool in every indoor kids playground. This one in particular is meant to represent the sea and it has a raft in the center where the kids are meant to help pull each other in, as part of the rescue.

This particular balls pit, it’s the ocean.

There are a lot of kids in summer camps.

A few weeks ago, I went in for a ‘Community Emergency Response Team’ training. It’s an emergency management course for people involved in their communities, free of charge, provided by the Fire Department and Emergency Management Services. The idea is to have backups for the backups, in case of a mass emergency such as shootings and hurricanes. They teach us basic triage and a very simple CPR.

Now, if there’s a hurricane coming, I can go around my neighborhood and ask my neighbors if they need anything before the storm, and with the help of the City and the emergency services department, I can try and accommodate their needs. Once you get the all clear after the storm, I can go back out, see the conditions, such as downed power lines and trees, and send the information to the city.

Once you get that certification, you’re on the list to be activated and to get more training, which I did. I went to Basic Water Safety Training, because Fort Lauderdale is the Venice of America. If you’re in the city of Fort Lauderdale, please know that you are no more than one hundred feet away from a drownable body of water, from anywhere, ever. Between the river, the canals, the pools and the ocean, there is really very little room left. The number one industry here is Maritime sales. Fort Lauderdale sells more yachts and yacht equipment than any other place on Earth.

The classes, for me, were more of a refresher. Besides my stint in the service, most of my professional career was in the administration side of Emergency Managent for special counties. I have taken some many FEMA, CPR and Anti-terrorism classes that I have lost count. Really. I already knew that the most likely drowning victim is between the ages 1 to 4 and that most of those incidents happen at home. What I didn’t know its that 80% of fatal and non fatal drowning victims are males. 80%.

The life guard that was there and the instructor told us that most of us overestimate our swimming abilities. But it isn’t most of us, it’s mostly men. Men thinking too much of themselves and teaching the young guys to think more of themselves.

Who’s shocked?