Be a Water Watcher for life

By Nancy Black

Yes, I finally did it; I broke down and spent the big bucks for a pool. It darn near broke my piggy bank, too. But, I’m telling you all, that was the best $8.99 I have ever spent.

Some might refer to our new backyard pleasure circle as a “kiddie pool.” It’s really a doggy pool to us, and our fur-covered family member is beyond happy with my purchase. I’m just beyond happy to have it.

I drove to four different stores to find one (Target, Home Depot, the going-out-of-business Toys ’R Us on Central Expressway) until I finally discovered my payload at Walmart.

It’s Kelly green with a red and black watermelon design on the bottom. Bottom. Ha. I chuckled when I wrote that because the bottom of the pool is only six inches from the top of the pool.

I laughed even more when I saw the “assembly instructions” taped to the wall of the pool. It is a hard, plastic circle. No assembly required, right? Wrong. Inside the instructions was a “Water Watcher” badge, complete with a string lanyard.

Being in charge of watching children while they splash and play around water, even in a shallow kiddie pool, is a serious job. Adults need to take shifts being the Water Watcher, passing off the lanyard as they come and go. That way, no one is confused about “who was watching the children.”

According to the site hopeandhelp.org, 48 children have drowned in Texas already during 2018. FORTY-EIGHT; that’s almost 10 children per month! The bottom line is: Watch kids around water. Assign a Water Watcher every time you and your children are near water. And always use a Water Watcher tag, which you can make yourself for pennies on the dollar, so you don’t have to break your piggy bank!