Public Pools Are Not for the Socially Awkward

Sometimes I just get a need to be submerged in water.

Wait. Let me start that again.

Sometimes I just really want to go swimming. 

That’s better.

I’m a self-proclaimed (based in Astrological fact, might I add) water baby. Sometimes I just need to chill out, take an hour, and sit by the lake and reflect. It’s very dramatic of me.

The other day was a day where I wanted to actually be IN the water (tehe, so many innuendos can come from this, but I will refrain. I’m trying to be mature, you know). Because our pool is basically dead – with, I’m assuming, very much alive bacteria – and I didn’t feel like contracting some weird disease, my only other option was the public pool at the local Community Complex (I guess I could have gone to the lake, but I live near Lake Ontario. Which…no).

My first mistake in this endeavour was wearing a bathing suit that was more suitable for the privacy of my backyard, and not at all appropriate for an afternoon of public swimming. The top is a little, ahem…small, so there were a few times I narrowly avoided a wardrobe malfunction (and maybe a few times where I didn’t and just didn’t realize it).

In my defence, I was expecting the pool to be relatively empty. It was a hot summer day – shouldn’t people be outside in pools? NOPE. (Which I guess is why I was there, too…shut up). Children. Everywhere. Just all kinds of children swimming in every part of the pool everywhere. I tried to ignore it. I did. I walked over to the 17 year old lifeguard (who I’m pretty sure couldn’t even save me if he wanted to) and asked, “Do I need to do some sort of test before I can swim in the deep end?”

“How old are you?”

“26.”

“No, you’re good.”

…I knew that. I was trying to be funny.

So off I wade into the pool, my posture extremely rigid as I tried to create some semblance of a flat, not beer bloated from a weekend binge, stomach. Head way up – chin protruding. Shoulders way back and down. Stomach sucked in abnormally. Nailed it!

Also – I have to admit this: I tried to be sexy. Like for the 17 year old lifeguards. In my mind, I looked like this:

Until I realized that I’m not a very sexy person and the whole swim-up-from-under-the-water-and-surface-with-a-sexy-look ended up more like this:



Suffice it to say that I lasted about 2 minutes until it got too weird in there. Even for me. So I went to the hot tub where I was alone (yay!) and tried to swim in there (which basically entailed paddling back and forth rapidly and in little circles because, let’s be honest, hot tubs aren’t really meant for swimming). Eventually I grossed myself out enough with the thought of all the people that go in this hot tub and how many potential germs there were, and I got out.

My public swimming adventure lasted a total of about 10 minutes. But my reputation as the weird girl who flirts with teenaged lifeguards and swims alone in a pool of children will last forever.

Love,

M