Swimming Pool Observations

No, I'm not talking about that dreadful French film that you are thinking about renting because Mr. Skin named it "Best breasts in a foreign film" in 2003. Which it may very well have been, mind you. No, I'm talking about little things that came to mind as I sat in the bleachers during HannahC's swimming lesson this evening. See, I am assigned the task of taking her to swimming on Mondays because MaxieC has a hard time sitting for an hour in bleachers with nothing to do, and because The Mrs. still labors under the misconception that being "The Dad" involves more than just holding down a steady, decently-paying job, and I don't have the heart to tell her otherwise.

I took my laptop to her lesson a couple weeks ago to do the first installment (and only thus far) of Diversity Corner, but this week I did not plan to blog from there. I planned instead to go to Lowe's to return one of the two 300W-equivalent compact fluorescents I bought yesterday. The one that worked for about 10 minutes. For $19, I expect my lightbulbs to last more than 10 minutes. Then, I also planned to hit Liquor Max cuz I was out of vodka (on account of the sudden popularity of the screw yu driver) and white wine.

Turns out that was about 20 minutes total, so I had a while to sit around and observe. As all of you who have blogs (well, those of you have have decent blogs (well, none of you)) know, you can't just sit around and observe anymore. Everything is material. Not having my laptop or any means of writing things down, I had to take notes on the notepad application on my cellphone. This surprised me, as I thought I had a voice memo feature on my phone. I guess that was the previous phone.

So I'm going to cop an Andy Rooney style here. Which means annoying little observations with little underlying theme tying them together. I hope to make Andy Rooney money off of it, but if I'm lucky, I'll make $1.

First off, it is not OK to pound on the window directly behind me when I am playing Asphalt Urban GT 3D on my cellphone because you want to be let in the exit door. The door that is always always always locked and that you can't even see from the parking lot, so the only way you know it is there is because you've been inside the building before, in which case you know it is going to be locked because no one leaves an exit door open that lets you get in to the pool without paying at the entrance, even if you don't have to pay today because it's lesson day.

Then, if I get up to let you in, it is also not OK to say, "I didn't want to interrupt your texting, but I was outside." Finally, all of this becomes especially, wildly not OK if the next thing you do is start talking to your 25-year old son who is sitting literally 4 feet over from me in front of the exact same window doing not a damned thing but sitting, but you didn't decide to bang on the window behind his head.

Oh, and while we're at it, once inside, it is not OK to set your goddamned backpack down in physical contact with me, even more so given that there are a grand total of two people besides you on this two-row, 24 ft-long bleacher, and the OTHER one is your own son. And it's not OK to set your grandchildren down at my feet and not their dad's. And none of this is made "all better" by looking me straight in the eye and shrugging your f'ing shoulders.

I wonder exactly what it is that would motivate a pretty, young woman to have a Playboy Bunny tattooed on the back of her neck. A pretty, young woman with improbably large headlights given the relatively slight frame. If you really are a Playboy Bunny (maybe, maaaybe a "college girls" or "girls next door" edition), does this actually improve your stock to have this tattooed on your neck? And if you're not, how pathetic is it that you put this permanently on your neck? If you're hot, people can tell you're hot without checking the back of your neck. This just says, "trash." You need to set your sights higher. You could have scored a dentist or a podiatrist or maybe even a tax attorney. I mean, this is Fort TomCollins. It's not like there's a lot of competition.

Hey bikini mom in the "mommy'n'me" baby swimming class, everybody hates you. I can see it in their eyes even from up in the balcony. The other moms resent you because you have gotten your flat stomach (mostly) back despite having a 1-yr. old, and the dads are upset because your mere presence costs them untold hours of grief:

[ring ring]

Dad: "Hello?"

Mom: "Hi honey. How about you meet me for a lunch date? I feel like doing something special today!"

Dad: "OK. Where?"

Mom: "Somewhere nice. PF Chang's." [it's Ft. TomCollins - ed.]

[Later]

Dad: "Oh, you brought the kids. How wonderful. And I see you got dressed up in your baggiest olive drab sweatshirt and the matching locker-room gray sweatpants, too!"

Mom: "So maybe you'd like it if I pranced around all day in a bikini like Ms. All-that? 'Oh lookit me, I just sit around all day going to the gym and getting my nails done while the nanny raises my kids. Oh, don't I have the most marvelous flat stomach!' Well f'k you, you bastard. Maybe you should try chasing around after these kids all day long. Or maybe you should have been smarter so you could have gotten a better-paying job and gotten yourself a trophy wife like you always wanted. And maybe a hot nanny too since your trophy wife is a f'king alcoholic because of the sheer boredom of being married to you. And then you can dress her up in diamonds and a slutty cocktail dress and take her out to PF Chang's, where she can show off her big, fake boobs that you paid for for all the other people to look at. Is that what you want? Well, I'm sorry I don't live up to your lofty expectations. Maybe you can go marry Ms. Thang and her bikini, except you probably don't make enough money or have a big enough dick. I can't believe you called me a fat slob! You're such a pig. My mother was right. Asshole. And in front of the kids, too."

Dad: "Uh. I have a meeting during lunch tomorrow."

Save us all the trouble and get a modest one-piece for the mommy'n'me classes. Save the bikini for when you're getting drunk on the speed boat on the weekends. You'll thank me for this the first time little precious gets terrified of "swimming" on her own and lunges out in a panic to grab a hold of the only thing within arms reach. And everyone in the place has a camera on his cellphone.

Speaking of one-pieces, hey teacher in the hot pink one piece, it's now about week 9 of the swimming lesson season. You haven't figured out by now that your bathing suit becomes transparent as soon as it gets wet? Nobody has mentioned it to you? Nobody at all? One of the other teachers, maybe? Have you ever wondered why there are so many dads in your mommy'n'me class? Dads who apparently recognized your Mark Spitz-like mastery of swimming and need lengthy private consults with you at the end of each class to go over exactly how Johnny is progressing?

Newsflash - it's not because Ms. All-that Thang is in the class. If you must wear pink, perhaps you should consider a slightly darker shade. Women just aren't fluorescent hot pink in those areas, I don't care what you've seen on your boyfriend's Hentai DVDs.