Being a lifeguard at a public pool is the closest one will ever come to being a Big Brother. And I'm not talking about being a Big Brother in the singing kumbaya, sitting around a camp fire with the United Way type of way. I'm talking about the Orwellian, all seeing type of way. On their perches, the lifeguards see and hear everything that goes on. Trying to rough house in the pool? Lifeguards will blow that whistle before you know which way is up. Getting ready to toss your niece or nephew? Before you even have them in the launch position, the lifeguards peer through their dark sunglasses and burn a hole right through your body.

Because of the nature of the lifeguard's whistle, all eyes of the people in the pool get turned to you directly. So if you did something stupid, the lifeguards are going to be sure to point it out to the entire pool.

"No rough housing sir," the lifeguard will say and all eyes in that pool are suddenly upon you as if they're all passing judgment. It's as if everyone in the pool asks themselves, "you were actually going to throw your nephew into the air into the water?...The SHAME."

Or maybe they're not thinking that at all. Maybe instead, the lifeguards are more similar to prison guards. All of the other inmates in the pool would love to try doing something stupid, but after years of oppression and repression, they don't attempt anything. So when someone does something "stupid," they just go about their merry way.

Do they teach lifeguards how to twirl their whistles at lifeguarding school? Do lifeguards have quirky names for their whistle twirl? Maybe they call it something weather related like "Cyclone" or "Twister." It does kind of resemble a hurricane in that the circle starts out really wide and slow. But as the rope gets roped around their finger, and the whistle gets closer to their finger, it gets faster and faster. I'd imagine that at lifeguarding school, it's one of the first things they teach you. They drill it into your head until it becomes a pattern. And once it becomes a pattern, it becomes second nature. And before long, it's an extention of self. The nature of lifeguarding is felt, through the whistle. Eternal.

I think it may be impossible for a lifeguard to not end the summer with the world's greatest tan. The whitest Irish mic could be a lifeguard, and when school rolls around people would swear that they had just seen a Middle Eastern man with red hair walking through the halls of their school.

Lifeguarding must be a very nerve wracking job. The way kids play and the way kids like to have "holding my breath underwater" contests, it's a wonder why all the lifeguards don't become little miniature Brodys from the movie "Jaws," ready to tell everyone to get out of the water at the first sign of trouble.

I guess one reason why they are not little nervous wrecks by the end of the summer is that they are usually spending more time looking at the hot member from the opposite sex either in the pool or at a different lifeguarding station. Lifeguarding to some lifeguards is a 6 hour shift of foreplay, which at the end of the day culminates in a lot of sunburnt kids making out. I'd imagine that a lot of these kids come back to their pools when everyone has left for the night for a little bit of the good ol skinny dipping. To deny it happens would be like denying that lifeguards aren't little George Hamiltons in the making.