Biohazard! Everyone Out of the Water!

So here I am sitting at the pool this past Saturday, enjoying a few hours (and by hours I mean maybe 1 hour and 15 minutes) away from the baby, and all of a sudden I hear the pool manager yell “Biohazard in the water, everybody out! Biohazard in the water, everybody out!”

Now, you want to clear out a pool with 30 people in it that is the way to go. So of course everyone is now staring at the pool manager and lifeguards wondering what is going on, and why are they staring so intently where some kids where swimming just a few moments before. Turns out, the biohazard was…you guessed it – poop! At least I’m pretty sure it was poop, they fished it out and tied it up in a plastic bag – just like when people curb their dogs, so I’m assuming it was poop.

As I was watching all of this go down, I couldn’t help but do 2 things – 1. laugh hysterically – hey it was funny! and 2. wonder if they were going to follow CDC guidelines for cleaning up such an incident. In full disclosure, I’m a bit more tuned in to this stuff because I’ve written for the American Chemistry Council’s Healthy Pools blog, so of course I HAD to observe what the lifeguards were doing to get the water back in shape. I mean, here was my job, literally coming to life in front of me.

So not only was everyone out of the water, lickity split, the lifeguards actually seemed to follow the guidelines for treating the water, keeping everyone out for a specific period of time (for this “biohazard” it was 1 hour) and luckily, for the kiddies, didn’t go around asking people who had done it. Whether or not the pool people would go around trying to figure it out I’m not sure, but if I was the offender (I wasn’t) I would be off somewhere, tail between my legs, contemplating never showing my face at the pool again.

Impressively enough, I used my test strips to check the water afterwards, and the pH and Chlorine levels were right in line with where they should be. Didn’t mean I was going to go swimming (I did have to get back to Baby R), but the moral of the story is … “Don’t poop in the pool!”

I’ll tell you this – as much as I COULD NOT stop laughing – I seriously had tears running down my face – apparently even at my age bathroom humor is funny – I hope that I never see or hear a person yell “Biohazard in the water, Everybody out!” Because when I do – it will be too soon.

(cross-posted from Sassing Me)