I once worked as a lifeguard for an independent company that contracted with local hotels that needed to staff their pools. In my state there is a law that if a pool is open for “public” use then there must be a life guard on duty. This particular pool was a dinky little thing on the second floor of a DoubleTree Inn. The patio was entirely enclosed in glass, even the swinging doors to the breezeway that led to the hotel proper. The pool itself was small. I was used to guarding large park pools that were at least 25 yards wide and 75 yards long. This pool was barely 5 yards wide and 10 yards long. It was one and a half feet deep...

So my college had a spades tournament. My daddy taught me that the only thing you have to bring to a spades table is trash talk. If you are faint of heart or timid of nature you should not sit down at a spades table. Do not even pull out the chair because you are going to get hurt. It’s a mind game – you gotta talk, and you gotta be able to ignore all the other talk. Ask notadoctor – shes no good at spades because she can only trash talk people over the internet. If there is a list of things that I am good at, though, talking is surely at the top of it. I ended up missing the first day of my college’s spades...

Butting heads about touching feet.