“Hey DL!” P yanks at another tangle before shoving a lock in DL’s face.
“Smell my hair! I used that Suave Coconut Conditioner yesterday and my hair still smells like it!”
DL takes an obligatory sniff, “I like that stuff.”
“Yeah, me too. At least the smell. It does have staying power that way. But it dries my hair out.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I think so. Well, it’s hard to tell cuz swimmers have notoriously wrong dry hair anyway, but the Suave isn’t great for the moisturizing hair situation” (MHS).
She nods, “I never knew that. I use the shampoo and I thought it dried my hair out, but now that you mention it…..” DL’s voice trails off. Lost in Hair Moisture Reverie Situation (HMRS)? “What kind do you use instead that’s better for the moisture situation?”

“Well, I got some huge tubs of Tres Semme conditioner, but it’s shitty too. Of course, I won’t throw it out; I’m too cheap. I used to use Finesse, but then I dunno…..”
P yanks at another tangle as the YMCA girl comes swooping through the loc…

P surveys the scene from the deck for a few minutes. Mayhem. Sigh. What the hell were the kids doing still in the pool at 8:45 at night? Didn’t they have school now? Why were they still here, preventing her from any hope of a decent swim?

All the lanes have at least two swimmers, if not three. P refuses to circle swim at the Oakland Y. It is hellacious beyond words.

Standing forlornly on the deck, clutching all of her equipment, she curses the Oakland Y. Damn damn damn I hate hate hate this pool! she mutters to herself.

Then, lo and behold, she spies a swimmer stopping, removing his cap, preparing to climb out. A lane! Yes! Quickly, she scurries over to grab it before another forlorn swimmer soul gets in ahead of her.

“Mind if I share your lane?” she asks the super swimmer guy.

Politely he lifts his goggles, revealing a beautiful set of handsome guy eyes. You know the kind? Where the lashes are long and lovely, but he’s still a guy?

“No problem,” he smiles, shooting out a killer s…

“What’s That over there in the corner?” P nods toward a mysterious square dark cloth laid out neat and flat on the top bench of Utopia.

“She’s drying it,” Sandy sighs, loudly. “I remember once I was at the Berkeley Y and this woman was drying her swimsuit in the sauna and I started to smell this horrible stench and said to her, ‘I think your Nylon is burning.’”

P and DL both chuckle. It’s a common theme in the women’s saunas of the YMCA. Women hanging their various clothing situations to dry.

“And these women that are always drying their panties in the sauna?” Sandy harrumphs, “I’d just toss a clean pair in my gym bag. Enough with the laundry at the Y.”

“Yeah,” P agrees, “I mean, how dry can those wet panties get in the sauna anyway?” P thinks about saggy droopy moisty panties and wrinkles her nose. But she has to laugh to herself about the Panty Theme for the day. That very morning, she’d been at a meeting, where the Chair of one of the Graduate Departments was going on and on about…