Wrong Class

"Thanks a lot." Elliot sputtered as his classmate pulled him out of the deep tank of the university swimming pool.

"No problem." Came the replied.

The enrollees of the swim class lined up again, after getting out of the 12 foot deep pool. A short set of instructions from the swim instructor, and they all dived in to the pool to begin three minutes of treading water.

Again Elliot’s began to sputter and cough, as he tried in vain to obey the instructor’s orders. The helpful classmate moved over to Elliot and guided him to the edge where he could hold on to the side of the pool.

This is not what Elliot expected from his beginner’s swim class. His program required that he take a physical education class, so he chose PE134, of which, 25% of the time was devoted to swimming. Elliot was terrified of water and had never learned to swim. This was before the days of classes for the “Really Terrified of Water”, so he had to choose from “beginner”, “intermediate” or “senior”. Of course, Elliot chose “beginner”.

Shouldn’t we be starting in the shallow end of the shallow pool? Elliot thought to himself has he followed his classmates into the ‘state-of-the-art’ pool facilities. He saw a 25 meter, three foot deep pool, a 50 meter, four foot deep Olympic pool, and a 20 meter, twelve foot deep diving tank. The three foot deep pool would have suited him more, but the instructor said the deep tank, and he must know what he was doing with all these beginners.

The instructor called the group out of the pool again for more instructions, and then sent them back in to do three minutes of drown proofing. They all jumped back into the deep water, including obedient Elliot.

Within seconds Elliot’s new guardian had to rescue poor Elliot before he drowned. This time the instructor saw the rescue and came over to inquire what was happening. He asked young Elliot, "What do you think you are doing?"

Elliot was petrified that he would be penalized for his ineptitude with another bout of not treading water. "I’m trying my best, sir," Elliot tried to hide his fear, but the pale face and coughing was betraying him.

“Look, I’m about to send you all to do five hundred meters of warm up in the Olympic pool. I’m not sure I can trust you to do this.” The instructor now sounded more like a drill sergeant than a beginner coach. Elliot now wished that he had confronted his fear of horses and opted for the polo class instead.

“So if I allowed you to choose your stroke, which would you pick?” the instructor continued his assault on poor Elliot.

“I would try the dog paddle, but I’m not sure I could stay above water.”

The instructor seemed human for an instant and began to chuckle. The rest of the swimmers joined in.

“Son, why did you register for this class?” The instructor softened his tone.

“A PE class is a requirement in my program. So I thought this might be a good time to learn to swim.”

“Learn to swim?” The instructor exploded. “This is the advanced senior class. The beginner class is starting in an hour, over in the small pool. You could have drowned in this class.”

Relief and embarrassment conflicted inside Elliot’s waterlogged head. Poor Elliot had such respect for authority, that he never questioned the wisdom of the instructor. Sure enough, he had misread his class schedule.

(588 words)