My Group

Everyone belongs to a group. Every group has rules. And these groups make up a diverse society. People cannot avoid being categorized into groups that compose not only who they are, but where they fall in society. The poem Girl by Jamaica Kincaid breaks down the rules to be in the domestic women group. To be categorized as a domestic woman, according to Kincaid, you must follow these rules. 

Using the Kincaid's poem as a model, I wrote about one of my favorite groups. I belong to the "MSC Lifeguard" group. No one will understand the poem fully, unless they are in my group, just like I did not fully understand the rules of Kincaid's domestic women group because I am far from domestic. 

MSC Lifeguards

Cheat on your lifeguarding test; take your lifeguarding test in a group; you have to be able to play ping-pong; on rainy days, you have to be amazing at Taboo; you must not put your feet up on chair; but I never put my feet up on chair; never paint your nails when you are sitting gate; do not put chairs in the kiddie pool; you must blow your whistle; you must blow your whistle three times when someone is drowning; you must not blow your whistle three times if there is no emergency; you are not allowed to roll down the straps on your bathing suit; but I never roll down my straps, Caroline does, but I have never; listen to the owner of Our Pizza House tell you all about his $500 water filtration system; you must use soap when cleaning the bathrooms; no, just spraying water on the floor does not mean they have been cleaned; refer to your manager as Joe Norris, named after Chuck Norris; get rid of all the frogs in the pool; you must not put your feet up on chair; check everyone’s card; but Caitie is my friend and I know she is a member but she never has her card; you must not let Caitie into the swim club if she forgets her card one more time; order lunch from Marc’s; you will pick up turkey on a whole wheat wrap with lettuce and honey mustard on the side for Joe everyday when you go to Marc’s; learn to love buffalo chicken pizza and refer to it as buff chick; be very quiet when you break into the swim club at midnight after the guard party when the managers go to a bar; when you get caught, hop the fence in the back right corner of the pool to escape the cops; you must remember to take your car keys out of the pump house before then; you do not want to work Wednesday nights or Thursday mornings; we pull chairs Wednesday nights; we put them back Thursday mornings; you must not put your feet up on chair; if you can avoid it, do not volunteer to get Dolly out of her car; you will pass out if you smell Dolly’s car; do not under any circumstance ask Dolly if she wants her cane, she thinks she can walk without it; she can’t; you must be tall and blonde and thin to be Dolly’s Next Top Model; but she told me I have a nice figure; you are not blonde, you cannot be a model; but she told me I have great legs; you are not blonde, you cannot be a model; no child can wear swimmies in the pool; do not let children wear diapers in the pool; you will get very bad tan lines from your lifeguard bathing suit; and most importantly, you must follow all of these rules and understand all of these inside jokes to be a MSC Lifeguard.