It's Not Easy Being Green

When I was growing up in Broomall, PA, I swam for Marple Newtown Swim Club during the summers. Our mascot was the seahorse, which was not at all intimidating--and a real pain in the butt to draw on posters. Our most heated rivalry was with the team from Martin's Dam Swim Club in nearby Wayne. Their mascot was the frog, which was equally unintimidating (but much easier to draw).

Even after 10+ years of summer-club meets, I never really figured out why we wanted to beat them so much, other than the fact that they were generally from nicer neighborhoods and we needed an excuse to cover our faces in blue zinc oxide every once in a while.



Don't try this on sunny days.

 The summer after my freshman year of high school, in addition to swimming on the team, I had a part-time job at the snack bar. I learned many essential life skills there: appeasing impatient customers; grilling Philly cheesesteaks; breaking Otis Spunkmeyer cookies and making it appear like an accident.

One of the most coveted jobs at the snack bar was creating the white-board sign that would sit on the main level of the club during swim meets, to remind guests that there was junk food to be had on the lower level. The night of the Martin's Dam meet, I was selected for the task. My advertisement went something like this:

Tonight's Special

In honor of the meet against Martin's Dam, the snack bar will be serving

FROG LEGS

They are a bargain at $4.25 each.
Come on down!

As I recall, illustrations were also involved.

I found out the next day that during the meet, a little girl from Martin's Dam read the sign and completely freaked out. Eventually her mother was able to convince her that the ad wasn't real, and that she would not be faced with dismembered amphibians when she went to buy her Ring Pop.

How did I hear this? The woman was my mother's boss.
To my knowledge, Mom has yet to rat me out.