Life Sucks. Thank God!

Browns Bridge Academy spends an enormous amount of time and money maintaining the Marty P. Wasserman Pool and grounds on the West Campus, named after Academy alum ('71) and former Maryland Secretary of Health Martin Wasserman, who commissioned the pool in 1980. The Board of Regents recently considered a motion to rename the pool for the current Headmaster, who had commissioned a major overhaul of the facility. However, events conspired to divert the funds into the James M. Chandler Septic System on the North Campus.

Given the extent of pool facility maintenance, it is odd that at a recent board meeting a different pool was on the agenda. It seems that the students have begun spending all their time in another pool, hastily constructed by the neighbors one Saturday afternoon using a shovel, a screwdriver and some Bud Light. Its dimensions can best be described in terms of inches, and its grounds consist of some patchy grass, one dandelion and a lawn chair. Huh. There's no accounting for 11 year-old taste.

On Tuesday morning, the Academy's pool maintenance crew required some parts that could only be found at a specialty store in Bethesda: The Anglo-Dutch Pool and Toy Company. Yes, we are not kidding - imagine what you'd get if you took a pool store and fused it together with a toy store. After accomplishing this feat, if you were thinking your creation lacked a certain obvious incongruity, you might name it Anglo-Dutch when you, the proprietor, are in fact Arabic. Sigh... only in Bethesda.

On the drive to The Anglo-Dutch Pool and Toy Company, the Headmaster passed Hampshire View Baptist Church, where he encountered an exceedingly odd church sign. Being an erstwhile church sign photographer, he simply had to stop and snap a photograph. He then spent the remainder of his drive contemplating the meaning of the sign. As it turns out, Bethesda wasn't far enough to work it all out. But one thing did stick in his mind - the back of the sign had the words "God Bless the USA". The Headmaster didn't take a photograph of the back of the sign, because the church had deemed the message SO IMPORTANT that it constructed a 20-FOOT BANNER ACROSS THE FRONT ENTRANCE!

(side note - the architecture of the church fit nicely with Tuesday's theme of incongruity)



Isn't it odd that the pastor of this church can't see the incongruity of his messages? Or maybe he just believes that America figures prominently in post-rapture politics. Ah well, far be it from us to understand the higher logic of eschatology. We're simply excited to learn that nothing in this earthly life seems to matter, so we're actually better off letting the pool, the grounds - in fact the entire Academy and its student body - go to pot. But we'll continue to maintain the James M. Chandler Septic System, just in case it figures prominently in post-rapture scatology.