Be a lifeguard

I decided to be a lifeguard since I can swim, I know how to sit on the beach, I can twirl a whistle around my finger, and I have sunglasses. That’s all it takes, right?

Okay, obviously I’m way under-qualified to be someone who saves lives as part of their job since the toughest thing I do each day is choose between McDonald’s or pizza.

I can’t be a real lifeguard because I have certain job requirements: I only want to work when I want, where I want, for a short period of time, and with only one other person—my 12-year-old son Daniel.

Since I can’t be the best, then I’ll be the complete opposite, the most unnecessary lifeguard imaginable.

We would go to a stretch of beach no one sits on, at a time when no one but drivers and joggers would see us, overseeing water filled with swimmer-hungry alligators and bull sharks on a rainy day.

When it comes to being useless, I win!

I asked Daniel, who can sometimes be Mr. No, if he wanted to be a lifeguard with me. Without hearing the details, he said, “Sure.”

Five minutes later, when I’d recovered from fainting, I asked if he was ready to go.

He started walking for the back door, thinking we’d be “pretending” to be lifeguards in our backyard, while I headed for the car. Now it was Daniel’s turn to react.

“I’m not going! People will see us. This is what weird people do,” he said.

False, true and true. He seems like a good future lawyer usually, but the lifeguard wasn’t in an arguing mood. There were lives to be saved.

His only good lawyerly move occurred a minute after we arrived at the narrow strip of sand we’d be guarding that overlooked Lake Pontchartrain. “I saw a snake here once,” he said.

Snakes and Roaches don’t mix, and he knows it.

“Live or dead?” I asked looking around.

“Live.”

I kept looking. He wasn’t very nervous, so I realized he was playing me. Oh, let the games begin!

So I got to “work.” I set up our beach chairs, put Oil of Olay on my nose to replicate whatever it is lifeguards use, donned my sunglasses and got busy.

I oversaw the beach activity of a log and a tree branch directly in front of me for 30 minutes. Lifeguarding is demanding.

Daniel got to work getting away from me, standing with his arms crossed by the jogger’s path or farther away by the car. After a while I asked, “Want to come sit next to me?”

“I’m not encouraging this behavior,” he said.

I think it’s important to share such bonding moments with your kids.

Now, to Daniel’s point, my non-existent fellow lifeguards hadn’t cleaned the beach in a while. Cigarette stubs, plastic bags, used New Year’s Eve sparklers, potato chip bags—not mine!—and Subway cups littered our 104-foot stretch of paradise.

So did seaweed, seashells and some sort of brown sludge I didn’t want to think too much about. Or step in.

The more I considered things, I realized Daniel was right about one thing: We shouldn’t be on this beach. My best work as a true “life guard” would be to keep people away from here. In fact, why am I sitting on Sludge City Beach with flip-flops?

Save me!

Be a Race Car Driver, Part 1

Orville Wright got the first plane to fly at a speed of approximately 30 miles per hour. And Wilbur ran alongside, probably wearing a three-piece suit, a bowler hat, and eating microwave popcorn. Wait, wrong Orville.

Now they tell me I’ll be driving a car Sunday at more than three times that speed and it won’t take flight?

I may not be Einstein—feel free to disagree—but logic and multiple “Back to the Future” viewings tell me that if I hit a certain speed either I’ll start to fly or at 88 miles per hour I’ll time-travel back to see my dad playing basketball at Lower Merion High School.

In short-shorts.

Neither option sounds good.

As a lark, I signed on to drive a “Supercar” Sunday on the NOLA Motorsports Racetrack, where the 2015 Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana will be held. Now I’m double-checking my life insurance and thinking it’d be wrong for Linda to be my in-car videographer because if things go poorly, Daniel won’t have us around to nag him anymore.

And I don’t want my 12-year-old high-fiving people at my funeral. “Oh yeah, another night of ice cream for dinner and 2 a.m. Minecraft battles!”

Some fool is going to give me the keys to a Ferrari, Lamborghini, or McLaren (I’ve never heard of that one, so they may be messing with me), and expect me to know where the ignition is? Who am I kidding—I may not know how to open the door.

Will it fly up like a DeLorean and knock me unconscious, or should I do that myself and try to slide across the hood like the guys in that “One Week” video?

I’m gonna drive a “Supercar?” I grew up riding in a banana-yellow station wagon fighting my brother and sister so that I alone could sit in the way-back and make faces at the cars behind us.

The first car I drove was a Chevy Chevette that reached a top speed of 57 miles per hour with a tornado tailwind behind me.

What do I know about cars? I watched “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” as a kid and thought Dick Van Dyke and his car were cutting-edge. I always wished my parents would buy Herbie the Love Bug.

I’ve decided my best bet is to fake it until I make it. To do that, I need to look the part.

I watched “Speed Racer” as a kid, so I know all about cool -- and I’m not talking about Speed or Spritle. I’ll get a pair of racing gloves, some designer sunglasses, maybe even some stylish racing footwear. If I top it off with a skin-tight white racing suit—and, why not, even an intimidating mask—I just may look the part.

Just call me Racer X. Chitty Chitty is out and Chim-Chim is all-in!

(Editor's note: My Sunday plans changed when I came down with a mild case of vertigo Saturday and Sunday. The room was moving, but I wasn't. I spent the two days feeling like every time I walked I was in a snow globe someone was shaking. 


Of course, that's not exactly conducive to driving 100+ miles per hour on a racetrack. I'm going to reschedule the event and get my Mach 5 back in gear then.)

"Meet the Pets," the Goldie edition

Time for another hard-hitting interview session with my own panel of experts ready to grill me on my work: Curious George, Franklin the turtle, Puppy, and a new guest, Goldie, the only one of the “pets” who ever meets me at the door when I come home from work. The rest couldn’t be bothered.

Me: “Thank you, all, for being here again, and a big welcome to Goldie. I know this may be a little disorienting for you.”

Goldie: (Wide eyes, wagging tail, no comment)

Franklin: “Oh, you added a real intellectual to the group, huh, John? I’m guessing she’s another Allentown College alum?”

Puppy: “I actually have some questions for you, John. I’ve been reading along—thanks again for not putting us back in the garage—and I’m wondering why you couldn’t throw us a bone when you were racing around the grocery store. I mean literally a bone. You couldn’t get something for us?"

Me: “All of the groceries were for charity. I didn’t get to take anything home. If the food were mine to keep, I would have parked my cart in the chips and bacon aisles.”

Puppy: “I saw Froot Loops in your cart.”

Me: (Wide eyes, no comment)

Franklin: “Speaking of dog food, remember the time John actually ate dog food? At the Abell's house. He thought they were fancy peanuts.”

Puppy: “I howled all night when I heard that. I think the Abells still keep some ‘fancy peanuts’ out for him in case he gets hungry.”

Me: “I don’t recall that at all. Not really, nope. But I will say I’m thinking you guys do alright with the taste of dog food.”

Curious George: “Just wondering, all this talk about food has me kinda hungry. Can a monkey get a banana? I see them right over there.”

Puppy: “Good luck with the old man sharing his food—remember how he’d hoard circus peanuts when he was in college?”

John: “Now, wait, you can’t ‘remember’ that. You weren’t even in the picture til almost 20 years after that.”

Puppy: “I got ears. Big ones actually. And people talk.”

Franklin: “You know, we really should ease up a little on the old-timer. He did turn 48 since we last talked with him. And Caitlin wasn’t exactly easy on him.”

Curious George: “Even I heard what she said and my ears are the size of freckles. ‘You’re already past middle age, Dad. The middle of your life would be 40 if you make it to 80.’ Classic Caitlin! Being me, I’m curious: How’d that feel?”

John: “How would it feel if I made you Goldie’s chew toy?”

Goldie: (Wide eyes, wagging tail, no comment)

Puppy: “You want us to focus on your work? I’ve got a grief: You were a tree? Really? You may have a thick trunk, but at your height, you’re more like a shrub at best.”  

Curious George: “I know trees. I swing from trees. And you, sir, are no tree.”

Franklin: “If he were a tree, he’d be a Bald Cypress.”

John (grabbing Franklin and holding him out to Goldie): “Come here, Goldie. Would you like a new toy? Look, Goldie, a new toy!”

Goldie: (Wide eyes, wagging tail, no comment)

Franklin (panicking): “A MIGHTY OAK!!! I TAKE IT BACK, YOU’D BE A MIGHTY OAK!!!!”

Puppy (whispering to Curious George): “Oh, how I wish I could have been near John when he was a tree. What I would have done.”

Be a Game Show-style Contestant (Race Day)

I know from years of competitive sports that the race is won before it’s begun. Preparation, attitude, mental toughness, and thinking like a winner. That’s what I was going to bring to the Supermarket Sweep.

So it was tough choosing between the “Princess Tiara” and the “Sparkling Light Sword” as I stood in the Dollar General preparing to buy something that would psyche out our competitors. The tiara said to me, “Royalty . . . but on the cheap,” while the faux light saber screamed, “Intimidation . . .  at $4 a piece!”

Oh, yes, intimidation it is.

You should have seen the looks on our competitors’ faces as my NOLA.com teammate David Lee and I stood proudly in the entrance of Winn-Dixie that afternoon wielding our awe-inspiring, plastic, dollar-store light sabers. They shared a mixture of shock, fear, and uncertainty, as if they were thinking, “What’s the number for Security?” 

Game over!

But just to be safe, David Lee and I mapped out our race strategy as we walked the aisles before the race. We’d split up to start; he’d take the cart and grab pricey items as I raced to get more expensive hams and he’d meet me there.

See, we were going to zig when other contestants zagged; while they fought each other over frozen turkeys, no one would be at the hams, so I could load up. Then, we’d get the frozen turkeys when everyone else had moved on.

Ingenious. If ingenious means “Not genius.”

My fellow media idiots emptied a full case of 80-plus frozen turkeys in the 25 seconds before we got there. It was like I’d gone shopping for a turkey at midnight on Thanksgiving.

Our race plan, as elaborate as two guys in a supermarket can make it, was shattered. Which is why the final 3 minutes and 35 seconds we were so clueless. A co-worker, when told we didn’t get any frozen turkeys, asked, “Haven’t you guys ever gone shopping before?”

That’s when we came up with a new plan: Grab everything! So we raced back up the aisles throwing anything we could into our cart.

With one cart filled—you could only have one cart in action at a time—David Lee set off to find heart-healthy items off a shopping list we’d been provided. It was for charity, after all. He’d carry them and meet me while I took the cart and raced off in pursuit of our secret weapon.

From watching old re-runs of “Supermarket Sweep” and from my own pre-race check to make sure it was still true, I knew wheels of high-priced cheese were the frozen turkeys of the refrigerated section. Actually, they were more expensive and took up less cart space.

I grabbed four wheels of imported cheese I couldn’t pronounce and would never want to eat at $219 each, and two wheels of the slightly-less-expensive-but-also-inedible variety for $110 each. That was $1,100 worth of food and plenty of cart space left. 

It was for charity, I told myself, not for my glory. Granted, it’s not exactly heart-healthy, but, I mean, the senior citizens might like a whine-and-cheese party: "Ohhh, my aching knees, but this beaujolais de creme de creme is exquisite!" See, I’m not taking this cheese just to win, I’m doing it all for them!

Hey, when the clock’s ticking, it’s easier to rationalize.

It’s also easy to get lost. I couldn’t find David Lee, though I’d prefer to think he was lost and I knew exactly where I was: In a supermarket shouting, “DAVID LEE!” at the top of my lungs like a kid who’d lost his parent.

Oh, the memories of every amusement park I attended when I was young. I think eventually my mom just gave up and gave me a note to hand it to a park employee when (not if) I got lost. Again.

Not wishing to continue my childhood nightmares, I sprinted to the front, where I found David Lee. And a third filled cart. Hmmm, having two carts in play is kind of against the rules.

But I was tired and I’d just picked up close to $1,100 of heart-unhealthy cheese that wasn’t on the shopping list, so I wasn’t about to point a light saber of blame.

With less than 20 seconds left, David Lee and I went off the rails completely and grabbed anything within a five-foot radius of our carts. So I hope the senior citizens enjoy the Froot Loops we got especially for them.

Now came the part I hadn’t expected: the wait. Being the last shopper behind 20-plus overflowing grocery carts is like being in Disney World on national Take Your Kid to Disney World Day.

The only joy: fellow competitors heard the rumors of our cheese wheels of fortune and came over to gawk in despair. One said, “Who would have thought of cheese?”

What normal person isn’t ALWAYS thinking of cheese, I wondered, clutching my light saber.

And yet, that’s where our chance to win vanished for two predictable reasons: supermarket efficiency and a man’s easily distracted brain.

First, someone from the cheese department came along after she’d noticed a thousand dollars’ worth of cheese gone and her career right along with it. So she scanned our cheese wheels to give us credit, but then took all but one of each back, and gave us two receipts.

Each receipt, besides showing the price, also had a handwritten number at the top to indicate there were four of one kind of cheese and two of the other. “Make sure you tell the checkout person to give you credit for all six,” she said politely, and walked away with all but two of our wheels.

That’s when my brain took a vacation and my body went along for the ride. Seeing I’d have a long wait, I walked away and David Lee and I got lunch. Then they wanted to take a group photo of the contestants.

Then I thought I should clear away the growing pile of empty carts, so I pushed them to where they belonged outside the front of the store. And it was a really nice day outside. And, man, that sun feels warm. Squirrel!

By the time I was finished “Walkin’ on Sunshine” and wandered back in the store, they were finished counting our groceries: $1,223.09. Because someone hadn’t told the checkout person how many cheese wheels were on the receipt, someone got credit for just the two in our cart and not the full $1,100 or so.

Someone’s mind can really wander some—squirrel!!

The winning team totaled $2,102.44. What are you gonna do: I lost the race, but not my light saber. How awe-inspiring am I?

Be a Game Show-style Contestant (Day 4)

There are a number of reasons I’m surprised daily that my company still lets me in the office every day. Exhibit No. 341: I send e-mails like this to a co-worker: 

“Do you have any skeletons in your closet? No, I mean actual skeleton costumes? Or other Halloween costumes that we might be able to wear? I thought it'd be fun if we dressed as a famous pair. Batman and Robin? Or the Mario Bros.? Scooby-Doo and Shaggy? Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson?”

Thankfully, David Lee Simmons is rolling with all of it, and then some. His reply:

“Given these choices, and deep emotional childhood scars from video games (really, this couldn't be Asteroids-related?), and my instincts as a long-suffering aide de camp (and a long-winded one): Watson.”

Elementary, Watson.

Next up on the agenda: Let’s go to the tape. Time to review YouTube clips of the old “Supermarket Sweep” TV show to see if I can steal some tips from former contestants.

The most important observation: Do I really want to take tips from people wearing matching 1980s-era sweatshirts and clapping like trained seals? I can look in a mirror for that.

Richard Simmons’ clap-happy crew did reveal some good moves, however. Get the turkey, honey-baked hams and meat first—expensive, heavy items go to the bottom of the cart. Or as the cloying announcer in one video said regarding the contestants’ thoughts, “I’d better beef up my score!”

Actually, those carts look hard to maneuver when they fill up. And Bam! One female contestant named Coleman just ran into the hip of another contestant named Spencer. Can’t blame her; girl’s gotta have her garden hoses!

Splat! Expensive imported cheeses are rainbowing into carts in every episode. I am quite familiar with the cheese aisle. Point for Holmes and Watson.

Other big hits are aluminum pans, hair-coloring products, Polaroid film, and Wham! cassette tapes—okay, I made up that last one. But some of these contestants look exactly like Wham!’s weakest link, Andrew Ridgeley.

And now I’m the weakest link for knowing Andrew Ridgeley.

Back to the videos. They needed a cleanup in one aisle as all three teams converged on the diapers at the same time. The “Anchorman”-wannabe announcer said, “Hey, everybody, keep to the right side of the road.”

If there’s an announcer at our event—perhaps named Spencer—my cart will know what to do.

Be a Game Show-style Contestant (Day 3)

People like to consider what superhero power they’d wish to have. Maybe it’d be to fly, or to own amazing vision, or to have unbelievable strength. Actually, what can any superhero do that Superman can’t? Got an answer, Robin, hero of the passenger seat? 

But too few people ask more realistic questions: What super-idiot powers do I already possess? And why do I keep showing them off?

Almost all of mine were on display as I continued to prepare for Thursday’s supermarket race.

I have the ability to fly by roads I’m looking for and get lost while driving, which is why I drove up and down N. Claiborne Ave. for 35 minutes last night while thinking I was on N. Carrolton as I searched for the Winn-Dixie.

I’d have asked for directions, but a blocks-long cemetery was on my right and it took me that long to realize a graveyard wasn’t a good grocery-store neighbor. Super-idiot powers of deduction.

When I was a kid, my mom regularly got us lost driving, one time because she saw a sign that read: “Exit | 25 miles per hour” and she got off because we were looking for Exit 25, which wasn’t anywhere nearby. So, I clearly inherited that power.

I have the amazing ability to irk friends at work. When someone sent an e-mail yesterday asking, “Anyone got a droid?” because her Android phone wasn’t working, I replied, “These are not the droids you’re looking for.”

And my other great super-idiot power is my inability to read what’s right in front of me. That’s a wonderful trait for an editor. But the problem never rears its Medusa head during work hours.

It’s only when I’m trying (ever so rarely) to build something, or apparently when I receive e-mails. But keep those fan e-mails coming!

Even if there are just three steps to an instruction manual, I always require four, with the last being: “Get Linda, Caitlin or Daniel, you have no idea what you’re doing.” Even manufacturers know my super idiocy.

If I’d comprehended the e-mail from the supermarket race sponsors I received days ago—before re-reading it today—I’d know that the race is not about grabbing 43 Mr. Coffees just so you jack up your total bill.

The e-mail clearly says, “You have a list of items and you make a dash through the store to get as much as you can. The trick is that you want to have the highest dollar amount in groceries…. [You] will have four minutes to collect as many heart-healthy items as possible.”

Fortunately, I discovered my mistake before hitting the store, so I spent extra time in the vegetable aisle last night. You want pomegranates? Done. Red peppers, green peppers, yellow peppers, blue fish. Or something. Done!

I was there long enough to see the vegetables get two misty showers. But it was tastefully done.

My thought after spending so much time with vegetables? Calgon, take me away! And I know Calgon is in aisle 7.

Be a Game Show-style Contestant (Day 2)

I’ve never been more excited by someone describing an event I’m entering than when I spoke to Terri Kaupp, who works with Second Harvest Food Bank.

Her company is teaming with Peoples Health and Winn-Dixie to sponsor the “Supermarket Sweep”-esque challenge I’ll enter Thursday with my NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune teammate David Lee Simmons.

“[Contestants] are all over the aisles,” she said. “It’s pure chaos!”

So I could be Mr. Chaos in a Winn-Dixie and get to hear the following announcement when we win: “‘Roach Running Wild’ takes over Winn-Dixie!”

I hope David Lee likes our team name, “Roach Running Wild.” And the Burger King crowns and togas we’ll be wearing, as well as the plastic swords we’ll be wielding as we pillage the aisles. Who wouldn’t be okay with that?

A surprising bonus to the contest is that unsuspecting shoppers will be doing their normal Thursday shopping while we run rampant. “Clear out, people, those Foster Grants are mine!”

Actually, I know better than to grab sunglasses since they’re just $10.99. I’m stalking big-ticket items.

How do I know? Because I stalked Winn-Dixie.

It wasn’t the race-day store, but my wife Linda, who was a marketing retail sales guru previously, said they would all be designed similarly. Tomorrow I’ll check out the real thing, but today was a preliminary reconnaissance at a local one.

Linda also told me that taking pictures in grocery stores was “frowned upon,” so I felt the eyebrows of Winn-Dixie upon me as I took a quick photo of some high-priced, easy-to-grab Gillette Fusion razors. Small, lightweight, expensive, and plastic-sword stab-worthy.

Terri said whoever collects items amounting to the most money wins, but after today, I figure some products will be off-limits. Otherwise, we’d all grab piles of coffee makers for $99.99 and popcorn makers for $69.98.

My new friends are also multi-purpose fryers, high-priced shampoo, clothing, and top-of-the-line steak. And the gift cards are practically jumping into my cart.

What’s disorienting for a somewhat shopper is that all of my favorite aisles are irrelevant in this game.

The chips aisle? Worthless. Soda? Bulky and cheap. Cookies, ice cream and olives? Why bother?

I don’t want to think too hard about how those descriptions reflect my dietary intake: Worthless, bulky and cheap, why bother?

 Or are they describing me? I don’t like this game anymore.

But I’m gonna keep the Burger King crown.