12 May 2007

H2... oh. 

Number of laps completed of 25m pool: 50
Number of times swam headfirst into lane ropes: 4
Number of hot lifeguards on duty: 0
Number of times hit on by thirteen-year-old boy: 1
Number of inappropriate brushes of the thigh by lecherous old men: 4
Approximate number of hairs fried to a crisp under temperamental hand dryer: 847
Number of overweight women walking naked around public change room: 2
Amount of strangers’ bodily fluids swallowed: I really don’t want to know

Sunday evening at the local swimming pool walking distance from my humble abode, trying not to think about the creepy Asian guy, who may or may not be stalking me there after attempting to hook up with me when I was at a tender significantly-more-jailbait-worthy age of yore, I decided to brush up on my anti-drowning abilities and make a start on losing those stubborn 2 kilos at the same time. Unexpectedly for a random Sunday arvo, the pool was considerably more crowded than usual, as a group of Korean international students had booked out two whole lanes and appeared to be trying to learn to butterfly by standing in three orderly rows and swinging their arms, windmill-style, through the water as if the pool was a cappuccino and they were the milk frothers. Alas, actually moving forward in the water did not seem to advance their cause – it was as if they were conspiring to make the biggest godawful noise and foam possible while still progressing along the length of the pool. There is a reason, I think, why the activity is called swimming, and not who-can-look-like-the-clumsiest-hippo-in-the-nice-chlorinated-water. To add insult to injury, all the Korean boys were hairless and scrawny and looked to be about fifteen, depriving yours truly of any passable eye-candy to appease oneself of an immense feeling of pissed-offness.

The rest of the pool was populated by frustrated middle-aged men who had in all likelihood taken up swimming due to a recurring knee/back/neck injury that had forced them to give up cross-country running/football/some similarly macho and sweaty sport, with one exception of two people who were obviously a couple because I honestly don’t know what they were doing in a pool, as a motel room would have been far more appropriate… Consequently, though the pool appeared to be filled with people, there were few actual swimmers in the lanes at any one time, as the majority of the waterlogged populace were sitting, panting, in a glut at the shallow end. However, I still maintain that having to share a lane with too many people brings out the worst social etiquette, or lack thereof, in those present. No sooner does some presumptuous breaststroker overtake you while trying their darndest to deliver a well-placed kick to your face, which you gallantly ignore and hold back marginally to let them pass, does she slow right down again to half of your original speed, so that you have no choice but to switch from a comfortable freestyle to a pathetic, half-drowning doggie paddle to avoid crashing into her arse. Not to mention the astronomically unfit losers who choose to subject the occupants of the fast lane to their snail’s pace backstroke, and stand up halfway down the pool to catch their breath! And the woman who makes a point of taking off from the edge of the pool at the exact moment I am about to commence another lap. And some of these people have so little concept of thoroughfare protocol that I hope to God never to encounter them on a narrow highway at night, as they will almost certainly be barrelling down it at full speed in the wrong direction. See those little black lines down the centre of the lane, people? USE THEM.

Maybe it’s just me and my basic twitching disdain for all humanity, but don’t you just recoil at situations where you have to come into contact with unfamiliar, slimy, unattractive and mostly-naked humans? And the public swimming pool experience doesn’t just end there – there are the change rooms to face, with the excruciating awkwardness of colliding into the aforementioned weighty naked individuals, and having to step through someone else’s soap scum to get to the showers, which are invariably either ice-cold or scalding, and have a mysterious inability to fully wash off all that industrial-grade chlorine. The more I think about it, the more it dawns on me what a thoroughly unpleasant experience the public pool usually is, and if it wasn’t for the decent exercise I do not know why I keep wanting to go back…

Then I manage to eradicate all the good work and calories burnt anyway, as we almost always end up going out for dinner after a session at the pool because MD and DD cannot be arsed cooking. Yet I must admit that all that expanse of kiddie pee-warmed water holds a strangely inexplicable appeal. Perhaps it’s the rare opportunity of seeing so much water in one place, or maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment, but even after repeatedly suffering through the retardedness of my fellow members of the human race, you can bet that I’ll be back there to go through all that frustration again at a time in the not-so-distant future.

My gosh, that IS kinky.


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