News and notes from Reston (tm).

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Get Mabel on the Party Line: Something's Fishy About the Reston Pool Phones

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Phone 2.jpg

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What exactly is going on with the phones at the Reston pools? We understand that health code regulations require each pool to have a working landline, so they can ring up Mabel on the party line if'n someone gets a lungful of water-laced chlorine or whatever combination of chemicals is actually in the cement pond, but it's 2012: Phones, by and large, are expected to work these days, especially if they're connected to the wall with old-timey wires. In the spirit of Woodward and Lothrop Bernstein, we stopped by our nearest Reston pool to investigate:

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Nothing to see here, folks. Phone's working fine!

8 comments:

  1. Kinda makes you wonder doesn't it. Surely amongst all of the patrons and guards, they must have at least one working cell phone, considering that something well north of 1% of the population has a cell phone with them at any given moment. Heck, for that matter, they could just flag down a passing motorist. Most drivers in Reston, especially those of the female variety, seem to glue that infernal device to the side of their head the instant that they get behind the wheel of their car.

    On a lesser note, me and the Delinquents were at the Watermine park going round and round on the Mobius River. At one point, the guards were doing a "comprehensive" lifesaving drill. So on one pass, we got to watch them scurry over to the "victim", put him on the body board and haul him out of the pool. On the next pass, we got to watch them simulate giving the poor victim CPR. Just when you think the fun is about to end, on the third pass, we got to watch them break out the AED (Defibrillator) and simulate pumping Joule after Joule of Joy Juice into the poor victim. What I didn't see, though, was them making sure that they weren't all standing in the same puddle of water that the victim was lying in. What fun that would have been to watch the victim and all of his would be rescuers simulate flopping around like landed fish on the deck of the pool as we float by lazily in our tubes on a hot, humid Sunday afternoon in June.

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  2. Fairfax County health code regulations require that the pool have a working landline - not just a charged cell phone. Believe the idea is that a cell phone could die or not have good enough reception for a 911 call in an emergency.

    Add that to the fact that landline service isn't exactly Verizon's top priority these days (really, I think only pools and Metro are using landlines these days), and these closings can happen.

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  3. What!?! No snow cones!?! Oh the humanity!

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  4. Since I don't see anybody else with outages, mu guess is that someone didn't pay the bill.

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  5. Can they do anything about some of the patrons who neglect the bath/shower rooms and prefer to strip/change their clothes poolside (I wish I were kidding about this)?

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  6. In this day and age, I think that one or two cell phones (with 2 different providers) may be more cost effective than a land line. Obviously the county code should be updated as well to reflect we're in the 21st century.

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  7. I don't get it. I have a landline; the wires are probably 40 years old and have been spliced every which way, and this *never* happens. How the H is it repeatedly happening at the pools?

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