Citizen issues all wet

This week, I attempted to sign up my children for swimming lessons. I would have easily succeeded in doing so, except that out of curiosity, I decided to ask the owner of the gym a question about the forms she gave me to fill out.

On paper, there were the usual spaces for name, age, address and telephone number, followed by four identical spaces for each of the children’s biographical information — with a puzzling question: “Is the child a U.S. citizen?”

I was surprised by the fact that someone would ask this question for swimming lessons. This wasn’t a public pool or a place where kids received funding or free classes or a government or state-run program where this information would be pertinent. No, this was a private swimming club, so I politely asked this lady why they were interested in the children’s citizenship.