Don't Wear Jeans to Waterparks

The summer after sophomore year, I worked as a lifeguard and it was a gold mine of crazy stories. There's no such thing as an uneventful day at that place, I swear. One of the scariest and funniest memories came to my mind today and I figured I'd share it with you!

It was the middle of the day and I was working the top of a water slide where four people can all race at once. My job was to show the proper way of going down the slide, wait until the coast was clear, and then yell "GO!". Although this sounds easy, it can be pretty awkward since I had to check everyone's' swimsuits for rivets (little metal circles usually on the back of swim trunks). If someone did have rivets on their suit, we were given little plastic nubs to press into the rivets so that they wouldn't damage the slide. Without these, the guests can not ride and it just so happened we ran out of them that day. Rotations were extra long that day so I had already been stuck there for a half hour and had been screamed at many times for denying rides to guests with rivets (just doing my job!). I was used to this but it's still not pleasant.

After many guests went down the slide, next in line was a couple but they weren't really dressed for the water park. The woman had on a swimsuit but the man was wearing a t shirt and jeans. I asked him to spin so I could check for rivets but he had none so I had no reason to deny him the ride. "3, 2, 1, GO!" I yelled after showing them to cross their ankles and put their arms behind their heads. The woman disappeared down the slide but the man barely moved once he got to the curve. Suddenly, this man stands up on the water slide. Keep in mind that this is at least 60 feet in the air. I yelled down to him to just go down the slide and push himself but I guess he took this as an attack because before I knew it, he started cussing me out! Next, he started crawling back up the water slide to the top, screaming profanities at me and getting angrier by the second as if this is all my fault. Fortunately the current was too strong for him to get back up, but he refused to go down. A few men in line came to my aid since I was only 16 at the time and fearing for my life. They tried to tell him to calm down and just go down the slide as I called my supervisor and security who quickly rushed to help. After a bit of reasoning, the man went down the slide and was met by security at the exit. So quick lesson, don't wear jeans to water parks and also don't threaten a sixteen year old terrified lifeguard.