Portrait of the artist as a sleeping lifeguard

This summer, while the rest of you held internships, ran political campaigns and generally furthered your lives, I spent my fourth summer in a row working as a lifeguard in the great state of Georgia. The job took me all over metro Atlanta, working at a different pool in a different neighborhood every day. It's the position that my lifeguard company calls a "floater," which is — by coincidence, I'm sure — another name for a piece of feces, which is — again by coincidence, I'm sure — exactly the way most people treat lifeguards. But I digress.

My typical work day wasn't very intellectually stimulating: applications and reapplications of suntan lotion, stolen naps behind mirrored sunglasses and repeatedly telling five-year-old girls not to sit on the lane rope. But on two consecutive days in July, I had a moment of realization — an epiphany even.

Now, I don't know why or how I had an epiphany while working at such a boring job. My mind was just open this summer; I still don't know why. Maybe it was from hearing the lectures of Cornel West, who told his class that the intellectual of today should always be thinking critically, always be judging situations. Or maybe it was from reading the great philosophical works of Edward Said and Matthew Arnold, who wrote that our minds should constantly be on alert, that we should never take things at face-value. Or maybe it was from smoking pure chlorine out of a makeshift snorkel bong every day before work. Whatever it was, my mind was open.

I was working at a pool in a ritzy neighborhood that had a huge waterslide, two diving boards and a kiddie pool the size of a baseball field. It had that vaguely British sort of name — "Ye Olde Country Club and Swimming Poole" or something like that — that is supposed to signify class or refinement. The parking lot was full of shiny Escalades and Mercedes SUVs. The day started off beautifully, and the pool had gotten crowded, but when it started to rain, there was suddenly a mass exodus to the cars. The pool area cleared out quickly, except for a few children who weren't ready to leave yet. "Come on, let's go," the clearly frustrated mother pleaded with her kids. "Hey: who wants to go see Pirates of the Caribbean again?" And with that, I had the afternoon off.

But tomorrow, as anyone from Atlanta can tell you, was another day. The next pool I worked at was about five miles from the first one but was in a, let's say, less affluent neighborhood. The bathroom doors were molded over, and a giant crack ran along the concrete at the bottom of the pool. Again the day started off sunny and, again, it suddenly started to rain. But a funny thing happened that is the scourge of every lifeguard who has ever worn a whistle: despite the rain, one family didn't go home. Though it was thundering and raining and the kids had to clear the pool, the family waited under the umbrella. They played Ghost and Categories while they waited. They shot water guns at one another while they waited. The mother read John Grisham while the kids threw a football in the rain while they waited. And I waited in the pump room, glaring out from behind the chlorinator, angrily glancing at my watch because I couldn't go home.

After three hours, it stopped raining, and the kids jumped back into the pool screaming with joy. Needless to say, I wasn't as happy. I was sitting in my wet lifeguard's chair, planning my revenge — a common tactic is the dreaded 35 minute adult swim — when I had my epiphany. Two neighborhood pools, not five miles apart, and yet what different reactions these families had to the rain! As someone who can't interpret even the most blatant symbolism — I still don't know what that song "Milkshake" was about — this was a big intellectual moment.

It seems obvious to me, to the point that it's almost not even worth writing it, that if Princeton University were a six-year-old girl, it would have seen "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" about 15 times this summer. The college has more money than it knows what to do with, throwing it around on pointless investments — the newer, blander Campus Club, already a disaster, comes to mind — when Lord knows they could just as well play Ghost and Categories under a pool umbrella for free.

Sorry, I lost my train of thought mid-sentence; my mind isn't fully back into Princeton mode yet, still stuck in Lifeguard. So, with your permission, allow me to lean back into the lifeguard chair, call kid's swim and slip on my mirrored sunglasses so that I can better see the pool in front of me. Jason O. Gilbert is a sophomore from Marietta, Ga. He can be reached at jogilber@princeton.edu.