Black Boogers and Snaggle Teeth (Not what you'd expect)

Hi, all. I hope your Halloween was as awesome as mine. I hooked up with 6 random people in my super skanky costume, stole 6 pounds of candy from local Bronx children (let’s face it, they’re already used to being shafted by white people), and sacrificed 6 virgins to Satan.

Hmm 6…6…6… Coincidence? I think not. (What did I tell you? The Scariest Time of the Year- For Your Soul)

Speaking of children, all those kids I stole candy from reminded me of some other children that I’ve known in my life as a swimming instructor.

These are children who don’t need costumes because in my mind the memory of them has grown and evolved to the point that they have now reached mythical proportions like the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, or Donald Trump.

 Not real

I thought I would do my best to paint a portrait of some of the more memorable ones. Depending on how it goes, I might make this a kind of reoccurring features like “Top 5 Things to Piss Me Off.” (When I say “depending on how it goes” I mean “if I don’t get sued and/or threatened by parents”)

So, without further ado, I present to you some of the coolest kids ever*

*all names have been changed to protect the innocent (the kids) and the guilty (me)

Black Booger Olive

            Once upon a time, there was a little girl, or maybe a little boy. I can’t really be sure because she/he was rocking a nice bullet (cross between a mullet and a bowl cut). She had super thick, coarse, brown hair that you could potentially use as steel wool if you were in a tight spot. Everyday we ask the kids to tell us something about themselves as a way to steal their identities learn more about them. One day, Black Booger Olive comes to lessons in a swimsuit…and jeans. Yep, she was cool like that. Imagine, if you will, a little mullet rocking badass who shows up to lessons wearing jeans. Now imagine that you have to ask her to remove her jeans (through a silent fit of giggles). Black Booger Olive turns to me with eyes slightly unfocused, head tilted to the side, and mouth agape as though I am speaking a foreign language. She then sits down still wearing her jeans and acts like it’s a regular day in the neighborhood (yep, Mr. Rogers reference. Taking it back old school, yo). I then ask her what her favorite sport is and she pauses for a few minutes (understandable when you’re trying to pick between bad mitten and croquet). She then responds “sport ball.”

Uh… excuse me?

So I ask, “what’s ‘sport ball,’ Olive?” and she replies, “I don’t know” and goes back to digging in her nose.

A nose that was, by the way, filled with weird black boogers. Hence the name, “Black Booger Olive”

Snaggle Tooth

            I’ve taught a lot of kids how to swim but there are no children I’ve had as often as Snaggle Tooth. Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t because he really loved the water or was super committed to perfecting his strokes. It’s because it took him 3 full years to pass level 1&2 (in our lessons “1&2” is one level). The very first year I taught lessons I remember seeing this small, scrawny child with one hell of a snaggle tooth and one eye that was slightly bigger than the other one and seemed to bulge out of his head. He was tiny and cute. I was smitten.

 He sort of looks like that

Then we actually got in the water and all hell broke loose. Apparently, 80 degree water feels like 32 degree water when you have a negative BMI and little Snaggle Tooth was not feeling it. So… he stood on the side of the pool, just out of arms’ reach and sang “I like to move it, move. I like to move it, movie. I like to… MOVE IT!” and any time I reached for him, he shrieked at what must have been a pitch only bats and dogs could hear and ran away. Of course, once you finally got him in the water, Snaggle Tooth didn’t do much better. One of the keys to floating on your back is to relax and lay still with every part of your body on the surface. Apparently Snaggle Tooth mistook “relax” for “tense the f-up” and “keep your tummy on top of the water” for “FETAL POSITION, NOW!” Needless to say, he sank like a rock and came up gasping for air like a drowned rat who had been deep sea diving without oxygen.

 Not a good way to float

At the end of lessons, we typically let the kids do jump ins. Little Snaggle Tooth loved jump ins and would stand at the side literally quivering with excitement (or the early stages of hypothermia). When it was finally his turn, he would screech, “CANNONBALL,” tense for a moment, shake, then leap violently to the water below going in in an almost perfect pencil dive. What. A. Stud.

Well, thank you for indulging me on this little trip down memory lane (not like you had anything better to do anyway).

If you liked this post, comment below because I have tons of other kids I could tell you about.

If you didn’t like this post, let me know and I’ll come up with something else to blow your mind next week. Or, if you didn’t like it, you can just go f yourself with the nearest sharp object. Preferably something that will give you tetanus.