My Most Embarrassing Moment

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Recommended: College essay on becoming a lifeguard

It was in December, during my Christmas vacation, when I decided to start looking for a summer job. There were many options but the job I decided to apply for was a position as a lifeguard at a waterpark. I filled out an application and was accepted almost immediately. The only thing left was the lifeguard training; little did I know that it was going to be an experience I would never forget.

The aquatic rescue part of the training was held the week of my spring break. I was excited about the training session because I was finally going to meet some of the people that would work with me and get to see what the job was like. The day before the session a meeting was held for all the people who had been accepted. Here I discovered that I was the oldest person trying out--everyone else was still in high school. At first I was uneasy about the age difference, but it also gave me some confidence (leading me to believe that I could handle the training as well as or better than anyone in the group). This was not a wise assumption.

The day of the training started with a slight chill in the air as most spring mornings. The weather made me even more eager to start, but unfortunately it also made the water a little too cold for comfort. I decided to skip breakfast and have a protein drink instead, believing this would keep me from getting stomach cramps and also supply me with some energy. Leaving my house that morning I could think of nothing but becoming a lifeguard.

The training started with a swim test. The object was to swim two hundred yards in a set amount of time. I expected this to be easy because I had been lifting weights and doing exercises for some time and considered mysel...

... middle of paper ...

... left two other women came in to use the showers, which I had to pass through to get to the outside. Thinking quickly, I wrapped my towel around my body as a girl would. I then proceeded to run through the showers praying the women would not notice the excessive amounts of hair on my legs. Evidently they did not because I made it through the day without being arrested.

After I got over the embarrassment of being physically humiliated and of making a terrible mistake, I went back to the session and completed my training. I quit lifeguarding after a week into the summer season to take a job that turned out to be for less pay and longer hours. Although the lifeguarding job did not work out I did manage to learn two valuable lessons from the training. The first was how to save a life and the other was not to be overconfident, for life is unpredictable.

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