Can You Hear Me Now?

With the summer swim team, I have found a comfortable place to volunteer my time:  the Bull Pen.  This is where we line up the kids in the correct heats for each event, giving them lane assignments and heat numbers.  It can be a very crazy place.  It can also be very loud.

Each summer swim meet runs in the same order.  The events have the same number at every meet, so the parents (and eventually the swimmers) get used to which event is theirs and will get their swimmer (or themselves) to the bull pen for these assignments. 

To help the parents (and swimmers) out, we try to walk around the pool deck calling for the event numbers we need to come to the bull pen.  Over and over and over.  By the end of a long meet I can easily loose my voice...and make me fully useless in any of these roles.

In a completely thoughtful and usefully generous way, I received one of the best birthday gifts ever--to help with this reoccurring problem.

Yes.  My family bought me my very own MEGAPHONE!!  Isn't that crazy?!  I giggled about it all last night, after opening their present.  But you have to hand it to them--they really came up with something I would use, but would never buy for myself.

Can YOU hear me now?!