Sugar comas
This morning I was working the early shift (6am til noon). That's nothing new. The new part was that I was working it with my coworker R who normally only works late afternoons/evenings. I wasn't sure how that was going to work since he's definitely not typically a morning person. It went pretty okay actually. He got there way before I did, mostly because he wanted to stop off at Shoppers to get a dozen donuts before coming to work, so I didn't have to do everything to open the pool by myself (yay!).
I had my normal breakfast of coffee and yogurt but was pretty excited when R told me I could have one of his donuts. I ended up sitting in the lifeguard stand first so that R could enjoy his donuts. When I got down I was totally wide awake. R got up in the stand and I left him there. When I went back again for my turn in the chair R told me that was the longest and worst sit of his life. He had such a hard time staying awake. That really surprised me since when I left him just about half an hour ago he was wide awake on a sugar high from eating two donuts. But whatever. He's not used to mornings, perhaps that had something to do with it.
A few hours go by, R and I continue to switch out of the guard stand. Around 10am I start to get hungry. Since I had yet to eat the donut R offered me I decided I would have eat one of those. I chose one with white frosting with some chocolate frosting drizzled over it. It was delicious and I totally enjoyed it. My next turn in the guard stand was horrible. I sat there fine for the first 10 minutes. But after that I could barely keep my eyes open. It was painful how difficult that was. I could feel my eyes constantly going out of focus. At one point I was able to focus my eyes and saw a man face down on the surface of the water not moving. I was about to jump in to get him when his head popped up and he started to swim. My heart beat quickly for about 90 seconds as I thought about how I was lucky that man wasn't really in trouble because if he was, I had no idea how long he had be doing his dead man's float. Chances are he was doing it way longer than 30 seconds. As my heart slowed I thought about how with that scare I would most definitely not have a problem keeping focused in the life guard stand for the last 10 minutes of my sit. And I was totally and completely focused... for about two minutes. The last 8 minutes I was back to the struggling to keep my eyes focused and even open.
When R came to get me down I told him how much I struggled during that sit. And we realized that it was the sit after we each ate donuts that were the ones we struggled in. So apparently the Shoppers donuts have way too much sugar. They give you a high for a couple minutes and then you crash and burn and fight your way out of falling into a sugar coma. At least that is the effect they have on the early morning life guards.
So... lessons learned from this experience:
1) Don't eat donuts when working the early shift
2) Never fully trust the life guards to protect you, even the best ones occasionally have issues beyond their control
Craziness.
I had my normal breakfast of coffee and yogurt but was pretty excited when R told me I could have one of his donuts. I ended up sitting in the lifeguard stand first so that R could enjoy his donuts. When I got down I was totally wide awake. R got up in the stand and I left him there. When I went back again for my turn in the chair R told me that was the longest and worst sit of his life. He had such a hard time staying awake. That really surprised me since when I left him just about half an hour ago he was wide awake on a sugar high from eating two donuts. But whatever. He's not used to mornings, perhaps that had something to do with it.
A few hours go by, R and I continue to switch out of the guard stand. Around 10am I start to get hungry. Since I had yet to eat the donut R offered me I decided I would have eat one of those. I chose one with white frosting with some chocolate frosting drizzled over it. It was delicious and I totally enjoyed it. My next turn in the guard stand was horrible. I sat there fine for the first 10 minutes. But after that I could barely keep my eyes open. It was painful how difficult that was. I could feel my eyes constantly going out of focus. At one point I was able to focus my eyes and saw a man face down on the surface of the water not moving. I was about to jump in to get him when his head popped up and he started to swim. My heart beat quickly for about 90 seconds as I thought about how I was lucky that man wasn't really in trouble because if he was, I had no idea how long he had be doing his dead man's float. Chances are he was doing it way longer than 30 seconds. As my heart slowed I thought about how with that scare I would most definitely not have a problem keeping focused in the life guard stand for the last 10 minutes of my sit. And I was totally and completely focused... for about two minutes. The last 8 minutes I was back to the struggling to keep my eyes focused and even open.
When R came to get me down I told him how much I struggled during that sit. And we realized that it was the sit after we each ate donuts that were the ones we struggled in. So apparently the Shoppers donuts have way too much sugar. They give you a high for a couple minutes and then you crash and burn and fight your way out of falling into a sugar coma. At least that is the effect they have on the early morning life guards.
So... lessons learned from this experience:
1) Don't eat donuts when working the early shift
2) Never fully trust the life guards to protect you, even the best ones occasionally have issues beyond their control
Craziness.