How Boy Scout Lifesaving Helped Me Destroy My Noise Canceling Headphone

Or

A Turtle Messed With My Meditation

On a regular basis I use the Headspace App, a way to quiet my mind and make me feel superior to people who do not meditate.  A practice I have been doing for several months now, is walking to my apartment complex’s pool in the morning, submerging myself up to my neck, placing my expensive noise canceling headphone on my head, closing my eyes for fifteen minutes and zenning out.  Afterwards I swim a few laps and continue with my day.

Yesterday I head for the pool, headphones on my head, towel over my arm.  Kickoff the flip flops, lay my cell phone down by the pool and walk to the steps to ease into the weightless environment to delve into the mysterious depths of my mind.

At the top of the stairs there is a black object, no discernable details, thanks to my sunglasses it simply looks like a deflated ball.  Being the public-minded and conscientious human being I am I decide to take out this piece of trash and throw it away.

I reach for it and it shoots away.

It’s a turtle.

A large turtle, about a foot from head to tail.

There is a turtle in my pool.

I should help the turtle get out of the pool.

I fall back on my old Boy Scouts of America, Lifesaving Merit Badge skills.  The classic mantra of Lifesaving. Reach, Throw, Go.  In order to help the drowning swimmer, you first Reach for the swimmer from a safe location and distance.

So, applying this first principle I grab the skimming net from the side of the pool and chase the turtle around the pool for a few minutes trying to scoop him up and out.  This does not work, every time I get close to him and try and scoop him up he swims away.   I try getting him into a corner and but due to the length of the pole I just cannot react quickly enough to get him into the net.

Time to change tactics.

The second principle of Throw will not work in this case, turtles stays below the surface, only coming to the surface once every few minutes to breath, and he is not going to grab onto a life preserver I throw him.

Now dear reader, you may be asking ‘Hey Aaron, why don’t I just report the unauthorized Turtle to the apartment complex’.  He clearly is not paying rent and he probably does not have a visitors pass, let the landlord deal with Turtle, or ‘why don’t you just mediate in a different area of the pool then Turtle?’

A. I am a man, and I started a project and have my pride, I just want to finish what I started, in this case rescuing Turtle even if he doesn’t want my help.
B.  I do not feel entirely comfortable getting into pool with Turtle who might be hungry (no telling how long he has been in the pool) then closing my eyes to meditate, while he swims silently around looking for a snack.

So, Throw will not work, so I continue with my Boy Scout merit badge training.  Go.

I will get in the water but keep my distance so I will stay armed with my skimming pole and herd Turtle with my body but scoop him up from a safe distance.

I follow Turtle around for a while trying to corral him getting the skimming net underneath him so I can get him out of the pool.

So, picture this.  Me, swim trunks, sunglasses, my Pittsburgh Pirates Bradenton Hat and my Noise Canceling Headphones.  While I am chasing Turtle around the pool I am listening to a podcast, Unpacking Peanuts, a semi-scholarly analysis of the Peanuts comic strip.

I corner Turtle in a corner of the pool, and the skimming net is closing in that is when Turtle does the unexpected and turns towards me and begins swimming at me.

I am not saying I panicked.  I did not retreat.  I simply and quickly backed up in a hasty manner, tactically dropping my skimming net and unfortunately stumbling a bit at the same time.

Noise Canceling Headphones go ‘plop’ into the water.  Turtle swims out of the corner and back to the shallow portion of the pool.

I grab the Headphones before they sink too deeply into the water. In other words, they were completely, absolutely and totally submerged.  I put them back on my head and they are not working, except a weird waterlogged static that maybe Aquaman could decipher but I cannot.

Do I get angry, no.  But I re-evaluate my tactics, time to move up to the last resort in my Eagle Scout trained mind.  Go.

Go, is the most dangerous, it means you get in arms reach, put hands on the drowning victim and using a variety of techniques drag them back to dry land.

Time to adapt those long ago learned skills to Turtle.

I grab my blue Speedo neoprene swimming gloves out of my gear, webbed hands to increase the difficulty of you stroke by grabbing more water to pull towards you.  But they might provide some protection if Turtle tries to bit me for my trouble.

Now I begin to herd him into the shallow end of the pool, I realize he has to come up for air every few minutes.  This will come in handy, I will not have to go the bottom of the pool, lift him up and get him out of the pool, I can wait till his nose is above the water then quickly and with purpose grab him between front and back legs on his shell and extricate him from the pool.

Easy peasy.

Except he is not coming up.  He is just sitting there.  And sitting there some more.

Research Note:  Later identified as a Common Snapping Turtle, or Chelydra serpentina, they can hold its breath for 45 to 50 minutes.

I have to get ready for work in an hour and I have already been doing this ‘project’ for a while.  So, I begin to herd Turtle towards the stairs, just to get him closer to the surface.   It works after some coaxing with my uncovered foot he gets up one step, then another.  Finally, he is only two steps from the surface.

I strike, moving with cobra like reflexes my neoprene covered hands grab him by the shell and flip him out of the water onto the pool deck.  Success.  Yeah me.

Now the easy part, herding him to the fence line so he can leave the chlorinated water and go find something to eat.

Except he heads right back to the pool and jumps in the water heading for the deep end of the pool.

I look at him swimming around.  Gather up my waterlogged and ruined Noise Cancelling Headphones and head to the management office.  Reach, Throw, Go works, but only if the person or in this case Turtle wants to be saved.

Categories: My Views On The Real World, Travel and Diversions, You Are Not Special

Tags: Boy Scouts of America, BSA, common boxing turtle, go, headphones, Lifeguard, meditation, noise cancelling headphones, podcast, pool, reach, swimming, throw, turtle, Unpacking Peanuts