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Blair Emsick
Mrs. Martinez
APLAC
October 2009


The Double Shift
It is a beautiful Sunday morning, to warm for October, to bright for 9:30 a.m. Leaves fall lazily to the ground and everyone else in my house is asleep. I am working the double shift at CoCo Keys; 9:45 a.m. to 9:45 p.m. I get there and spot another guard Annie, we walk to the break room together talking about UNO and color guard. We walk into the break room and are welcomed by fellow tired faces. I clock in and put on my shorts and coco keys t-shirt. Big Dan our newest supervisor asks me what position I’d like to go to. “Surprise me.” I reply he says, “Alright river backyard.” We sit in the break room for a while more joking about who had a hangover, while folding towels, when Dan tells us to head out. So all of us 11 guards head out. The park feels empty and warm as I watch the other guards head to their positions. I try my best to mentally and physically prepare myself for the 12 hour day. I notice three dripping trash bags someone forgot to take out from the night before,
And also notice that one of guests from Saturday night thought it was appropriate to defecate on the steps(as a lifeguard you deal with a ridiculous amount of poop). I whistle one of the head guards over and show him the mess, he rolls his eyes and gets supplies to clean it up. I reach my spot put my tube on and settle in for the day. It’s just another
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morning at CoCo keys.
This place seems to be as much as my home as it is my prison. With about 40 other guards somehow we’ve all managed to become pretty close. We’re like a big family or inmates, waiting for our sentence to come to an end, waiting for closing time, but the majority of the time you’re not talking to other guards you’re watching your water. Sometimes I’ll get asked by a guest if we get bored walking back and forth just staring at the water. The truth is we can’t get bored. Working a 12 hour shift one has to find something to occupy their mind, or else they might go insane. I memorized the alphabet backwards once (Z, Y, X, W, V, U, T…) but most of the time I day dream. What if that man right there had a heart attack? What if I suddenly started seizing would any of the other guards save me? What if I get a 36 on my ACT. I think that’s one of my favorite parts about working at CoCo. I can let my thoughts turn and fall where they may, sometimes I create a whole different life in my head, but sometimes on a bad day with only me and my thoughts I can feel your mind slipping away from me.
The day lurches forward slowly, I take my break and gossip in the break room with Heaven, another guard. 3 o’clock rolls around and I see my sister Sarah come on to work the evening shift. Five more hours till closing time I think (plus a half our of cleaning then an hour of in-service.)
At CoCo Keys one sees a lot of things. I meet hundreds and hundreds of people a week and learn a lot about the world. It’s a place where families come old and new, unconventional, and conventional come to relax and have fun. The oddest part is that everyone seems to be happy. Sometimes I find myself wondering can people really be this
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happy? CoCo key even as a my work place offers a temporary escape from the world, where your only worry is when if it going to be your turn on the slides. Is it ironic that I find my sense of place, at a place that is so disconnected from the real world? I’m not sure
I really enjoy meeting and talking to all the guests at CoCo. I build connections with these people, if only for a day, and I really feel at home meeting and talking to all the guests. We have this motto at work, “Make their day” but often I find that the guests make my day.
The evening is winding down and I anxiously watch my watch. CoCo keys is lit up almost majestically and it is one of the coolest things you’ll ever see. Our Supervisor closes the park a half hour early because all the guests have gone. All the guards are feeling good as we get assigned our jobs. I’m assigned women’s restroom and finish at 8 o’clock the time we usually close. In-service doesn’t start till 8:45 so the other guards and I sit and hang out in the break room. Finally in-service begins and we head to the lobby. Tonight’s topic: CPR. For an our we practice cpr on an adult, child, and infant. Finally 9:45 rolls around and my sister and I walk out to my car discussing interesting guests we met, or weird tattoos we saw, and I glance back at the glowing building. Even after a 12 hour shift I find myself I little hesitant to leave.