Friday, January 18, 2013

Scuba Diving Without Water

Photo by J. J. Smith, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

My son Luke is in his final semester of college. When he signed up for classes, he was one unit short of “full-time.” So he decided to take a PE class. And the only one that fit into his schedule was scuba diving. (Just so you know, we are all really jealous. Jake has announced that when he’s a senior, he’s taking scuba too.)

After Luke’ first day of class, we all crowded around. We asked him if he got to go into the pool.

Luke: No.

Me: Oh, you probably had a water safety lecture, right?

Luke: Yeah, sort of.

Me: So are you getting into the pool on your next class?

Luke: Not exactly.

Me: Not exactly? What does that mean?

Luke: The pool at the ARC (Aquatic Recreation Center) is shut down.

Me: For the day, or the week?

Luke: For the foreseeable future. It’s structurally unsound.

Me, perplexed: It’s brand new.

Jake: I bet the engineers forgot to take into account the weight of the water.

Me: You can’t be serious.

Jake: It happens all the time. (Apparently, Jake hears horror stories in his engineering classes.)

Me: So, Luke, are you going to be using the university’s other pool?

Luke: That’s closed too. It’s being retrofitted with sprinklers in case the pool catches fire.

We all blinked.

Me: So what are you doing in scuba class?

Luke: Listening to lectures. The sprinkler pool should be open in February.

Right. Maybe scuba doesn’t sound so fun after all.

8 comments:

  1. That is hilarious. (And a little scary about the engineering)

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  2. 0.o In case the pool catches fire???

    Poor Luke. Sounds like an awesome class had a spectacular fail.

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  3. HUH! Who knew a pool could catch fire??? On the plus side, there'd be plenty of water around to put it OUT.

    I sure hope the class gets to try out their skills in actual water before your son graduates. (How do they even grade scuba students if there's no WATER involved?)

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  4. This is so funny, though I feel bad for Luke for not actually being able to scuba dive! I had the same reaction to that comment about not taking into account the weight of the water when designing pools! Seems like a no-brainer, but maybe that's the problem; we take it for granted?

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  5. I bet he has to pay the same class fee as if it were a "real" scuba class, right? Kind of scary that this thinking is from the folks that are supposed to be doing the teaching! At least you don't have to worry about Luke drowning while he's learning :>)

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  6. It's too bad he didn't actually get to enter the water. Though it makes a funny story!

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  7. Hahahaha how university-like is that! More or less the same happened at mine when I was there. :-D

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  8. Funny! But it must have been disappointing for your son not to do the real thing (or at least something closer to the real thing :)

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