the pool
august 01, 2002
i lurve bentos! but is has nothing to do with today's entry. :p
what is it about the onset of summer and hot weather that draws us toward the beckoning calls of the crystal blue waters in swimming pools? aside from the obvious, swimming in the pool during the summer probably reminds most of us of our youth during those long vacation months when we had nothing to do but lay around and watch cartoons all day long. and when the weather got unbearably hot, we sought out places to swim and fried ourselves to a dark nutty brown. melanoma? p'shah, isn't that a word from the spelling bee?
i guess for me, the nostalgic scent of cocoa butter lotions and chlorine intermingling in our senses elicit an immediate retreat from reality. after spending more than three quarters of my childhood in a swimming pool - this rectagular haven serves as comforting as a mother's womb to me.
so ever since the weather has been warming up in LA, i've been spending quite a bit of time each day swimming. and as usual, there are many observations to be had. i pretty much see the same folks swimming when i go as well. but most of the time they aren't really swmming but imagining themselves to be faux jellyfishes, floating about in the lanes waiting to entangle themselves into those of us who ARE actually swimming. then there are those who just ooze themselves into the jacuzzi and submerge their big hairy mass under the foam donating god knows what into the water. as much as i am adjusted to swimming, i will never get used to the phlegm slinging men and women who just HAS to hack things up when they're in the pool. at moments like those, i wish i could push their head under and hold them there....forever. i mean, why oh why would people do that in a public facility where other people are actually soaking in. despicable. embarassing as hell. especially if they are asian. and you KNOW they are.
but i go about my own way and really try not to pay attention to people, unless of course you're wearing the world's smallest aqua blue speedo that would even make exotic dancers' faces turn red. but it's ok. i look the other way. where i then see mr. studly handsome asian boy strutting into the pool, only to see that he swims like he needs to be rescued from Baywatch. he slaps the water so hard during his stroke that i can't help but think of S&M videos. so as i try to swim down the lane, ms. crab walker decides that she doesn't swim but walks down the lanes of the pool. which is not a problem except that she walks right down the center....which causes me to either 1. avoid her or 2. ram my fist into her ass. i prefer the latter but i would probably trigger a phlegm attack.
tis not easy to swim with folks who like to use the pool but do not swim. have i told you about the men and women who don't swim to the sunny end of the pool but stop right where the sun begins and turn around to go back the other way? do they not know that asians have a very small chance of getting skin cancer or are they still brainwashed into that whole "white skin is more beautiful so i won't look like i dragged oxens in the fields this morning type of look"? i would deter my attention to the people lounging about trying to get some sun but mr. bucket o' body rolls just absolutely loves watching asian girls in all their fairness and reminds me of jabba the hutt waiting to clamp a leash onto one of their necks and dragging them about. and how about ms. cellulite? she not only drags my lounge chair to the central sun position, as if she's ISIS, but she tosses my towel to another chair while discovering the heavenly scent of my sunscreen and no doubt spraying herself with it while i was swimming down the other direction. and although i have cellulite galore, ms. cellulite seems to insist on wearing string bikins to show us her collection of it.
seems like just another summer afternoon by the pool to me. :p
