This weekend Mattie and I took an all day course at our local American Red Cross chapter for First Aid and CPR for adults/children/infants. Mattie was renewing his certification, and I tagged along because I figured it would be good to know how to keep a life going til the pros arrive. Next time someone's chokin with a chicken bone, I'll know how to throw down the choke thrust and pop that sucker out. Or, if you break an arm doing Tom Cruise couch antics, I'll know how to sling you up.
It feels really cool to be a card carrying Red Cross First Aid/CPRer. I highly recommend to everyone that they take a First Aid/CPR course. Not all courses include the child/infant part. If you are a parent, I would say it is a must. The way to help a chocking baby (0-12mos) is very different than for a child.
The most hilarious part of our class though was the teacher, Chris (not her real name but a good gender ambiguous one). I swear we had to be in a sitcom because our teacher was the kind you would picture in a class on Will & Grace, if Will, Grace, Jack and Karen were forced to take the class. This lady was donning a fuchsia pink sweat suit with a log cabin, some trees, and some sparkling things silk screened on her sweatshirt. It's the kind of sweat outfit you would buy in Reno at a Casino. She was a grandma, and I could totally picture her on the bus full of blue hairs with her plastic grocery bag full of Cheetos and peanut butter crackers going to whoop it up in Reno-town, "The biggest small city in the world."
She had glasses with thin silver trim that made her eyes look bulgy, and her hair was a lovely Brillo pad yellow. Pat also wasn't the happiest person around either. She was supposed to teach in Pleasanton that day, but got a call last minute that she had to come to San Francisco. Of course that wasn't our problem, but nonetheless she let us know. I kept waiting for her to bark at us. She looked like she would have a pretty mean bite. I definitely wasn't looking forward to watching her blow down on a CPR dummy. Matt and I both tried to picture her hot in her 20's, and yet as curious as we were, we still didn't want that image burned in our brain.
No matter, Chris was only in our lives for 8 hours, and yet I will always remember her and her hot pink sweatsuit with the sparkling things.
