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scrottieThere is a community pool just down the way. Taken up in college, swimming is a favorite mental break for me, as and upper body exercise. It's exercise not requiring mental vigilance.
It took some trial and error, but I figured out that if it is overcast and rainy, right around 10:30am, I could get into the pool.
Other swimmers did far more work than I did; most of them leave for work late or take off early or other convulsions and swim at the same time on the same day every week, and any new comer pushes the completely booked up pool past the breaking point, in addition to being exceedingly unpleasant for the new comer.
But on rainy days, enough people are tipped over the edge of not swimming, that I can get. Today is overcast. There are effectively not rainy days during summer; this is the best I can do. I went for it.
Screaming children, as I approached. Oh, %&#!. Peered through the fence. Pool not completely full. Realized that all of this time I'd swam there, or attempted and failed to swim, there was a second pool that's been unused and covered; the kids must be there. Maybe it's okay. Screams must be coming from there... oh, and from the locker room. Going for it.
Cashier informs me lap swims ends at 12:30, just over an hour away. Winter, it's open until 2pm usually, but public pools have schedules that change by the minute. Whatevs. Go in. There's a wall of children with no path through. Like a truck on a road full of sheep, I inch through them, trying to make loud "excuse mes" in the hope that some attendant adult with shoo them off or at least not call the police on me for trying to the hell by. Children are completely oblivious.
Approach the locker room. Screams are still coming from the locker room. Approach. Kid blocks the door and starts asking me questions. Try to be nice but also don't want to get in trouble for talking to someone else's kid. Keep it short. Tell the kid I'm going to swim and I'm going to change and gesture to go in. Kid is oblivious. Panic. Move to run him over. He moves. Inside, father is screaming for that kid to come back, two more are running around. Go to change in one of the changing booths I don't normally use but quickly discover all three are occupied. As soon as father has the first three children under control, he goes over to the changing booth and starts screaming at the booths which are full of children who are playing and apparently have been playing and refusing to exit the booths since before I approached the complex. Stand there dumbfounded for a few minutes clothes half off staring at the wall of lockers while screaming children chase each other around and try to interact with each new adult who comes in. Eventually father coaxes one kid out of the changing booths while two others just go running off into the pool area.
Swim. It's lovely. As it gets close to closing time, I have the lane to myself. Then boom! I crash into someone. Someone entered my lane without alerting me first. Convention, everywhere I've swam, is you stick a limb or something in to get the attention of a person swimming alone then ask "mind if I join?" and they say yes and then they know that they're splitting or circle swimming or whatever you figure out. You don't establish circle swimming or lane splitting by jumping in and going for it. Stop, gawk, dumbfounded again, mumble something, decide I should have fled along time ago and promptly jump out of the pool and run for the locker rooms.
Shower, quickly. Man enters and starts trying to talk to me. Doesn't notice I'm not responding. Keeps talking to me. Go to change after drying my hair; family with kids came in and he left his shower on and left and the shower area and is walking around the locker room naked which is normally not a big deal. Trying to put clothes on; completely swarmed; get my pants on shirt on then grab everything else from the middle of the cluster of children and flee the locker room; fuckit, I'll put stuff in my bag and put my shoes on in the parking lot. Naked guy is peeing naked and making inappropriate loud noises.
I'm guessing lap swim hours are reduced during summer when the kiddie pool is open because no one in their right mind will attempt the locker room unless they have their own chaos entourage.
Swing by 7-11 for a tallboy to calm my nerves. Cashier attempts to short change me a $10.
California is a lot of fucking work.
It took some trial and error, but I figured out that if it is overcast and rainy, right around 10:30am, I could get into the pool.
Other swimmers did far more work than I did; most of them leave for work late or take off early or other convulsions and swim at the same time on the same day every week, and any new comer pushes the completely booked up pool past the breaking point, in addition to being exceedingly unpleasant for the new comer.
But on rainy days, enough people are tipped over the edge of not swimming, that I can get. Today is overcast. There are effectively not rainy days during summer; this is the best I can do. I went for it.
Screaming children, as I approached. Oh, %&#!. Peered through the fence. Pool not completely full. Realized that all of this time I'd swam there, or attempted and failed to swim, there was a second pool that's been unused and covered; the kids must be there. Maybe it's okay. Screams must be coming from there... oh, and from the locker room. Going for it.
Cashier informs me lap swims ends at 12:30, just over an hour away. Winter, it's open until 2pm usually, but public pools have schedules that change by the minute. Whatevs. Go in. There's a wall of children with no path through. Like a truck on a road full of sheep, I inch through them, trying to make loud "excuse mes" in the hope that some attendant adult with shoo them off or at least not call the police on me for trying to the hell by. Children are completely oblivious.
Approach the locker room. Screams are still coming from the locker room. Approach. Kid blocks the door and starts asking me questions. Try to be nice but also don't want to get in trouble for talking to someone else's kid. Keep it short. Tell the kid I'm going to swim and I'm going to change and gesture to go in. Kid is oblivious. Panic. Move to run him over. He moves. Inside, father is screaming for that kid to come back, two more are running around. Go to change in one of the changing booths I don't normally use but quickly discover all three are occupied. As soon as father has the first three children under control, he goes over to the changing booth and starts screaming at the booths which are full of children who are playing and apparently have been playing and refusing to exit the booths since before I approached the complex. Stand there dumbfounded for a few minutes clothes half off staring at the wall of lockers while screaming children chase each other around and try to interact with each new adult who comes in. Eventually father coaxes one kid out of the changing booths while two others just go running off into the pool area.
Swim. It's lovely. As it gets close to closing time, I have the lane to myself. Then boom! I crash into someone. Someone entered my lane without alerting me first. Convention, everywhere I've swam, is you stick a limb or something in to get the attention of a person swimming alone then ask "mind if I join?" and they say yes and then they know that they're splitting or circle swimming or whatever you figure out. You don't establish circle swimming or lane splitting by jumping in and going for it. Stop, gawk, dumbfounded again, mumble something, decide I should have fled along time ago and promptly jump out of the pool and run for the locker rooms.
Shower, quickly. Man enters and starts trying to talk to me. Doesn't notice I'm not responding. Keeps talking to me. Go to change after drying my hair; family with kids came in and he left his shower on and left and the shower area and is walking around the locker room naked which is normally not a big deal. Trying to put clothes on; completely swarmed; get my pants on shirt on then grab everything else from the middle of the cluster of children and flee the locker room; fuckit, I'll put stuff in my bag and put my shoes on in the parking lot. Naked guy is peeing naked and making inappropriate loud noises.
I'm guessing lap swim hours are reduced during summer when the kiddie pool is open because no one in their right mind will attempt the locker room unless they have their own chaos entourage.
Swing by 7-11 for a tallboy to calm my nerves. Cashier attempts to short change me a $10.
California is a lot of fucking work.
