I’m lifeguarding, go on a rescue, get back, and the next thing you know I’m the last guy in the tower again.  So I’m hangin, thinking, “Whatever,” and the phone rings.

            “Who is this?!” they ask.

            I wondered for a second then replied, “Who is This?”

            So they answer, “This is Headquarters.  You deployed your tube in the wrong manner.”

            I go, “What?”

            He said, “You popped the tube wrong.”

            “What do you mean I popped the tube wrong?”

            “Who am I talking to?!”  He yells back at me.

            So I go, “This is Cary Smith.”

            “Well do I know you?” he asks.

            I go, “I don’t know.”

            “What are you doing on the tower?”

            “I’m making some rescues.” I answered.

            “Well, who told you to make rescues?” he asks me.

            I said, “I don’t know.  The other guys were gone, so I started making some rescues.  It’s a rotation.”

            So he yells again, “Who is this?”

            And here I was, waving at him up on the tower.  So I said, “I gotta go,” and went on another rescue.  And I come back.

            The phone rings and goes, “Hey, I want to talk to you again.”

            I’m thinking, “What the ****?”

            So I go, “Uh, what’s up?”

            He says stearnly, “You can’t deploy your tube until you hit the water.  Do you understand?”

           “I go, uh, OK.”

Comments from the listeners as Cary tells the story:

            “What do you mean you can’t deploy it?  You carry it with you, don’t you?”

            Cary answers, “We have soft tubes as opposed to hard tubes.  As you get to the water line, instead of carrying the thing out with you, as soon as you start getting in about ankle to knee-deep water, you put the tube on and you pop it so it’s trailing out behind you.  Apparently, I was supposed to hold onto it until I got into a ‘swimming position.’”

So he goes on with the story: 

            As he’s on the phone with Headquarters he asks, “I did the rescue alright, didn’t I?”

            Headquarters replies, “Yeah.  You did a great job…But…”