Dogged But Determined

Of course PP hates the goddamn time change. Except in the morning. Now that she hasta swim at the crack of dawn, well, for her 8:30 is dawn, that extra hour is vital. But yet, this morn, when she thought she’d have more energy cuz of the extra hour, she didn’t. Blame the grey malaise clouds? (Although as Capt. Gwen B pointed out, that cloud cover is ‘awesome’ for us delicate skinned cancer victims.)

Speaking of which, does PP’s skin know about the time change? Should PP be going at the same time in the morning? A.k.a. 7:30 am. instead of 8:30? Damn. Maybe so. It’s all so stupid. It’s just time and clocks and sun and pools and cute girls.

The girls do help. PP waits patiently at the desk check-in as slim pale never in the sun cute girl studies some diagrams of gross organs. Livers? Lungs? Intestines? Disgusting, especially at the crack of dawn.

“Are you taking Anatomy?” PP asks politely, trying not to stare at cute girl's own anatomy. Well, not trying too hard as CG yawns and stretches her slim arms up over her head, revealing her slim pale belly.
“Yeah” Cute Girl murmurs in utter boredom.
‘Well, it’s quite impressive that you’re studying it at 8:30 in the morning,” PP admires.
“Yeah, I guess.”

Oh to be young and jaded.

PP collects her fins, kickboard and pull buoy from CG and heads into the locker room but not before getting a gorgeous grin from her favorite swimming musician, BS who’s just gotten outta the pool.

“How’s the water?” PP asks.
“Perfect.” BS asserts, his head still wrapped under a towel before looking up and seeing PP. “Oh! It’s you!” (Now PP gets that grin!) “It’s LOVELY!”
“Really?”
“REALLY!”
“Good to hear,” PP thinks she believes him but is dubious. BS likes it cold. He’s one of THOSE types!
“You’re gonna love it. Besides you’re here, aren’t you?”
“Yes, that’s the hard part.”
“Exactly. So you won’t chicken out or anything, right?”
“Errr…right….”
PP doesn’t like the sound of the chicken out part, but heads into the locker room to change anyway.

BS was right. The pool was lovely. Warm and empty. A lane to herself after Sidestroke Swimming Woman got out under the pool covers. (PP had watched in semi-interest as a lifeguard held the blue pool cover up for SSW slightly so she could swim under it to the steps? Wasn’t this highly dangerous? Those pool covers always stress—there’s daunting warnings written all over them-- how no one should swim on or around or under them. Maybe with the lifeguard’s help it’s ok?)

PP wants to try it too. She’s always wanted to swim in that weird darkness under the covers, but it’s so scary. Why she’s not sure. It’s not like Mills has the Lockness Monster lurking under the pool covers. Damn this is a stupid blog. Sorry ‘bout that, but nothing happened today. The other day, Friday, the showers stopped working while PP was soaped up. Shampoo in her hair. Soap all over her body. Ms. Pool Manageress had poked her head into the showers and announced, “If you haven’t noticed, the water is turned off. I’d suggest you desoap as quickly as possible.”

Desoap? Is that a word?
Evidently it is in the official world of a Pool Manageress!

Needless to say, PP hadn’t been able to desoap without burning her tender skin off. (For some reason the cold water was off but there was a trickle of hot…hot…hotter water! Till finally PP hadda get out. Soap in her hair. One huge tangled shampoo mass.Hissssss!!!!)

Was PP a little cranky?

Of course not.

So yes, Friday there was a story, but today, Monday? No story….except for time confusion in the hot tub which is sorta cliché now isn’t it?

Oh let’s try it anyway.

“What time is it?” Blue Shirted Smiling Woman asks.
“I can’t tell.” PP answers, trying to read the clock thro her chlorinated vision.
BSSW frowns up her smile as she rolls up her shirt and squints at her watch. “It’s 10:43.”
Glamour Sphinx Woman smiles serenely over at her, “You mean 9:43.”
“Whoops! Yes, guess it’s not as late as I thought.”
GPW nods and almost laughs, but she’s way too cool. Instead just stares straight ahead with her Mona Lisa smile.
PP giggles. She thinks it’s funny. But everything is post swim in the hot tub. Such a relief to be done and tired and warm.
BSSW wants to chat. “It is cold today.”
“Yup.” PP agrees.
“Glad we have the hot tub.”
“Oh yah!” As you all know, PP lives for the hot tub!
“I couldn’t go in here before I swim though.” BSSW insists.
“Oh, I have to. I’m so cold all the time. I get warm first and then stretch out and then take a hot shower and then get in the pool.” PP describes. “It’s quite a process.”
BSSW nods. “Bet you swim faster cuz you stretch out first.”
“Nah. I don’t swim very fast anymore. I swam faster 20 years ago.”
“I swam faster 40 years ago.” BBSW giggles. “Now I just call myself, ‘Dogged but Determined.”
PP nods. “There’s a lot to be said for that.”
“Ummm….’
PP sinks under the water. Aren’t dogged and determined the same thing? Shouldn’t it be dogged and determined, not dogged but determined?
Glamour Sphinx glides out of the tub as PP and BSSW watch in admiration. She’s so young and brown and unfazed. Bet she never gets cold!
“Well, time for me to get out too, I guess. You have a good one.” BBSW calls out cheerily to PP.
“Thanks, you too!”

Sinking back into the tub for one last moment, PP watches as BBSW heads into the locker room. Her bright blue shirt contrasting the grey dreary sky. A new friend perhaps? PP resists this making new morning friends, but....it's a new day. A new time.

Maybe this year the time change won’t be so bad, PP thinks to herself, as she climbs dreamily outta the tub. But then a cold blast of wind brings her back to reality. Something PP can do without, as she scurries into the locker room and, hopefully, a hot shower with no desoaping complications!

Come on in!

PP has been heinously sick. How the hell can a kitty get so sick with a stupid cold? It’s astounding. PP can only surmise that the well gods are against her lately, but thankfully, a smiling health goddess blessed her this morning with only a minor sinus headache and a yucky nose. Ok you don’t need to know those details!

Suffice it to say, that PP FINALLY got back in the water today! What a difference to her brain a swim makes! (As all of you swimmers do know!)

So, really no stories today at Club Mills other than a Snarky Swimmer that didn’t want PP joining her lane. Okay, PP gets that. She didn’t want to join her lane either. She hates circle swimming, but hell, she was freezing. Standing there shivering in the goddamn shade. (Yes, PP did make it in the morning. This is still highly cranky. And what happens next week with the stupid time change? Does PP’s skin know that it’s now what? 8 a.m. instead of 9 a.m?)

PP doesn’t think so.

Anyway, the Snarky Swimmer relented after PP stuck her big fins in her cranky face.

Just kidding.

Actually, she bopped her on the head with a kickboard.

It was so satisfying! The board made a wonderfully resounding echo on her wet headed cap. And the look on her face was one of sheer amazement.

Evidently she’d never been hit on the head with a kickboard before.

Okay, PP is still just kidding. But she had you goin there for a moment, eh?

So, PP does get into Snarky Swimmer’s lane and they circle swim for hell, 3 minutes? 4 minutes? Just till the swim team was finished. (PP had mentioned this to SS initially.)
“Can I join your lane?”
“Do you have to?”
(PP is not sure if SS really said this, but since she’s making everything up on her blog this morning, why not? It sounds about right.)
So PP glares at SS through her killer borrowed shades from Dashingly Handsome BF and smiles sweetly.
“YES! I have to! I’m freezing out here!” PP is visibly shivering. Or at least she feels like she is what with being wet and in the shade and still kinda fragile from her heinous cold.

SS glares back at her. “Does SHE know?” pointing to the other swimmer making her way obliviously back up the lane. “
”Yeah, she knows.” PP had approached her first. She’d just nodded and kept swimming.
Relenting, SS shrugs if you can shrug underwater. “Okay, come on in.”
PP grins. SS is trying now. Maybe she hadn’t had enough coffee before getting in the water this morn? Maybe she was in the middle of a particularly beautiful set and had been upset at PP’s interruption.

Maybe she was just a Bitch.

Whatever, PP glides down the lane. The water a purrfect 82 degrees, the sunlight blue sparkles starting to eat away the shade at the opposite end.

It feels so good to be back in the water!

And with a delighted splash, PP ducks under the lane line to takeover the next lane now emptied of the swim team.

Let SS have her own lane. Hell, they can all have their own lanes! At least for a moment. And sometimes, PP realizes, tho this is rare, that the Moment at fin is the best!

IT'S ALIVE!!!!

“EEEWWWW! SNART!!! GROSS!"

PP’s little sis ( whose nickname for PP is ‘snart'—actually both sisters call each other snart just to confuse the identity issue even more) is pointing at an exceptionally mammoth black slimy clump of dark disgusting mound of hair? Isn’t there a more odious word to describe it? In any case, there it sits, covering most of the drain in the hospital green showers of The Golden Bear Pool, the soapy water swirling it around in a slow whirlpool vortex.

PP wrinkles her wet nose, trying not to look, but of course, thanks to her sister, can’t help it.
“IT’s ALIVE!!!” C. Sue cries out, delightedly giggling.
PP dives in to the fray. “And it’s moving!”
“OH! SNART STOP IT!” Lil Sis cries.
“And look, Snart, there’s another one, there, right next to you, in the empty soap holder, clinging to the white porcelain.”
“GROSSSS!”
“Look over there!” CS continues, “On the wall! It’s crawling up and toward you. It’s gonna get you!”

“EWWWEEEWWWW!”

“And there, on the other side. See that little wisp?” PP points to the green tiles next to her sis.
“Where, Snart, where?”
”There. Right near your thigh. It’s crawling toward you.”
”Stop it snart! It can’t be moving.”
“Ah, but it is. See…it’s inching upward and over. Soon the wet spindly little hairs are gonna reach across the tiles and touch your sensitive skin on the back of your you know what…”
“UGH!!!!!”

PP cracks up as she finally turns off the shower and heads back to the locker room. Hears giggles behind her. CS and Lil Sis are pointing and laughing at her ass.

“What? What’s the matter? Do I have One on me?” PP asks in terror.

“No, no, it’s nothing that frightening,” CS giggles. “It’s just that you’ve been standing in the hot water for so long that you have this bright red stripe down the middle of your ass.”

PP frowns, then turns to point her ass at the mirror on the opposite wall. Sure enough. She’s got a bright pink stripe down her backside. Starts to laugh.

“You’re right. Well, I was cold.
”Bet you’re not anymore, Snart!” her sis quips.
“Nope. I’m finally warm.”

CS starts to giggle again.
“What’s so funny?” PP asks.
“Nothing nothing….it’s just that….”

PP grins. “What?”
Lil Sis starts to giggle too. “Snart! Did you see? Look under you. IT’s following you!”

Jumping up, PP hops into the locker room, creeped out completely. “Where is IT? I don’t see anything?”
”You don’t, Snart? Take a closer look. Under your foot…..”
“Yeah, PP, I think you better sit down for this one.” CS giggles.

Wrapping her towel around her, PP sits down on the bench and surveys the floor under her feet. “I still don’t see anything.”
Lil sis starts to laugh again. “You’re too late, Snart. It got away.”
”What?”
”The Glob.”
”The Glob?”
“Yeah, you’ve heard of the Blob? Well, you were the unwitting victim of the Glob. That dreaded Hair Ball of the Shower. It was after you, but you thankfully eluded it.” CS grins.

PP stares at the two of them. “I think the hot water has gone to your heads, you two. There was no Glob on me.”

Lil Sis grins, then nods enthusiastically. “OH, Snart. You are so lucky that you escaped. Next time you might not be so lucky.”

“What the HELL did they put in the water?” Eavesdropping Swimmer calls out from the row of lockers on the other side.

Giggling, PP, CS and Lil Sis shake their heads. Lil Sis calls out to ES—“It’ not in the water, it’s in the shower. So be careful.”

Shaking her head and laughing, ES heads out to the pool as the lilting giggles of PP’s sis and friend echo thro the green cavernous locker room.

Temptation….

“You know Coach I if I told her that once I told her that 1000 times and she still don’t listen.”
“Wait till she’s a teenager.”
“I hear you! I got three preceding her.”
”Haa! Then you’ve been down that road before.”
“Oh yeah.”
“WATCH THE BALL!!!! HIT THE BALL IN FRONT OF YOU!!! IN FRONT! GOOOOD!!!”

PP grins to herself as she dries off in the deserted locker room. Remembers her own tennis life. Did she really ever play tennis? It does seem like another person all those years ago. PP sighs, listening to the soothing whack whack of the ball.

“12…..13……14…….15…..16…….17….18…..”Good! You almost made 20!”
“You do wonders with her, Coach!”
“Thanks!”

PP hears the Coach begin to count again. What the hell is he doin? She doesn’t remember doing this exercise with Mr……??? God she can’t remember her coach’s name? But she had such a crush on him when she was 12! How can that be that she’s forgotten his name? How amazing the aging brain process is.

PP shakes her head as she pulls on her top. It’s so quiet today at Mills. (No she didn’t say farewell. Not yet at least) No one in the pool. Why PP even had a dream moment of swimming with NO ONE else in the water. Heavenly. But with the cold gray morning, it wasn’t surprising that the place was empty.

And she was safe from the Demon Sun this way!

Now, in the locker room, she’s the only one here. Well except for the eavesdropping tennis lesson. “IF there’s one thing I want you girls to take away from this tournament it’s that ……”

PP heads into the bathroom section to start The Hair. It’s become such a long ordeal. Spies a fancy Biolage Leave In Conditioner left on the counter. Mmmmm….maybe she should try it? And then if she likes it?

She can always steal it. PP likes to swipe stuffs left in the locker room. Not big stuff like fancy scarves or shoes or sweaters. No just little stuff like shampoo, lotion and conditioner.

So, if the Biolage was left here and she likes it?

Well, it musta been left for a reason and that reason is her!

PP reaches for the Biolage. It’s over half full. Cool! Lifts it to a particularly tangled mass on her right side. Presses the squirt squirt button…fizzle... fizzle…..

Damn. She can barely get any leave it on conditioner out to leave on! No wonder it was left around!

Shrugging, PP puts the conditioner back where she found it. Next to the 2nd sink. Or was it the 3rd one?

Oh no! What if she puts it back Wrong?

Giggling to herself, PP shakes her head. Who cares? It doesn’t work anyway. Too bad though, she thinks to herself as someone slams thro the door, rushing into the locker room.

PP glances over, hoping it’s not Hurry Up Bitch. It’s not. Thank God. Another lap swimmer she doesn’t recognize. This morning swimming is a whole different crowd. PP remembers the other morning, was it Wed? When she did get kicked outta the pool cuz there was a class. Pretty Gray Haired Streaked Woman had seen her later doin her hair and had asked if they could swim past 9:45. PP had grinned and quipped, “You mean push it a little? PGHS had nodded, smiling sheepishly. “Yeah…cuz I can’t get here till 9....I hafta drop my kids off at school first.”
And PP had shook her head, “Nah, they’ll kick you out. Believe me, I’ve tried it.”

But Today! Today is Friday. FRIDAY!!! HUB can’t chase PP out today cuz the pool is open till 3:30! And it’s only 10:30!

Can PP get out of the locker room in five hours?

Sometimes it does seem like it takes her 5 hours to get outta there.
Esp from HUB’s point of view!

Tossing her wet suit and new 50+ sun block shirt in her bag, PP gives the Biolage one last wistful glance. It looks so forlorn there. Left on the counter. All alone and broken.

Should she take it?
PP hesitates. She could put it in another container. With a squirt mechanism that works…..Shaking her head, PP pushes open the door. She’s not that desperate for Hair Products.

Heading out into the cold fog morn, PP spies Dashingly Handsome BF sitting on his usual spot, spacing out. Should she tell him about her Virtuous Resisitance of Forlorn Hair Products?

PP decides not. Let him read it on her blog.

Rising and taking her bag for her, DHBF grins down at her. “I’m ready for another cup of coffee!”
”Mmmmm….” PP agrees as she follows him out into the parking lot, tossing a long tangled wet tress enticingly over her shoulder, the smite of Biolage smelling expensive and dangerous.

Captain GB’s Swim Team

“So, I got a call from the principal’s office today.” Capt. GB sighs wearily.
PP grins from behind the sumptuous Hot Tub bubbles, “Really?”
“Yeah, J bit someone.”
Giggling, PP nods. “That sounds like a good story.”
”Oh, yeah.”
”Why did he bite someone?”
”Turns out that this other kid had him in a choke hold and it was the only way, according to J, that he could escape.”
”Sounds like biting the kid was a good idea.” PP laughs.
“Yeah, you know I thought the same thing. Thing is, I can’t let J know that I think it.”
”Why not?”
”It’s just not a good thing when your kid goes around biting other kids. Even though I’m not surprised. J told me a few weeks ago that there was a Bully in the class. And I saw this kid. He’s big. “
“And mean!”
”Exactly!”
“Where did it happen? On the playground?”
”That’s what I thought, but then when I finally talked to his teacher, she said it was in the classroom.”
”Where was she?”
“Oh, she was there. She just turned around for a second and then WHAM! The Bully puts the chokehold on J and J bites him!”
PP laughs again, delighted. Capt. GB tells such funny stories about her kids. Of course, PP knows that the biting child is probably not really a laughing matter. But it sure sounds funny. “So, guess you’ll hafta talk to J and tell him it’s not okay to bite other kids, right?”
”Yeah.”
”How do you do that without laughing?”
Capt B lets out a short snort. “It’s hard. Believe me. Especially when I think J’s not all wrong in the matter.” Sighing, Capt G glances over at the pool, now lit magically in the growing darkness like a white rectangular diamond.
“Look at the moon!” PP points through the darkening pines as a golden crescent moon rises behind the fog.
“Wow. That’s cool. You ready for a swim? “
“Sure,” PP nods, “I just need to go the bathroom first. Where are they again?”
Capt B explains as she takes off her glasses and gathers up her fins and cap. “See ya in the water.”
”Yeah, I’ll be right there.”

PP tries not to trip over the dark wooden steps on her way to the bathroom. She loves this Harbor Club Pool in Alameda where she gets in for free on the last Friday of the month courtesy Capt. G, but it is rather dark. And wet. Someone’s got a hose snaking into the bathroom. Damn, PP mutters. She really hadda go to the bathroom and didn’t want to try to navigate her way back to the main inside ones. Oh well, she’ll just follow the hose and see if it’s a man or a woman at the other end. Though why this would make a difference, she isn't sure. Either way, the hosing would probably mask the peeing!

Peering inside the restroom, she sees the back of a guy hosing out the showers. Damn. How’s she gonna go to the bathroom with a guy in here? Backing out, PP notes the line of urinals on the wall. Ummm….that’s odd. Urinals in the ladies room? Glancing at the signage on the door, PP discovers that she’s been skulking around the men’s room and not the woman’s. Jeeez! That Hot Water musta go to her brain to walk into the wrong restroom. Or was it the moon?

PP’s glad that the Hosing Guy didn’t see her. Why, she’s not exactly sure as she turns around and finds the ladies room right next door. Whew! And no one here. Great. Plopping down on the toilet, PP shivers. She’ll hafta get back into the hot tub again before the big pool to warm up.

Making her way back out in the dark, PP notes the Hosing Guy out on the lawn now, spraying away. A dark lumbering form, startled from under a lounge chair? sprints, if raccoons can sprint? across the wet dark lawn. PP grins as she watches the animal disappear into the darkness. Will he go for a swim? she wonders? Do raccoons swim? If they don’t, they sure should since they already come equipped with their little black goggles!

Giggling to herself, she heads back to the hot tub only to find it inundated with screeching teenagers.

Damn.

No second hot tub before the pool, she sighs as she recovers her cap and water bottle from behind a scrawny 15 year old boy, his white back glowing in the dark as he ignores PP’s murmur of ‘excuse me?’ He’s way too busy sizing up the gaggle of girls all shrill in their bikinis and wet hair.

Glancing up at the golden moon one more time, PP smiles. She can remember being that age.

No actually she can’t.

Grinning, PP heads over the lawn, mud between her toes on the wet grass as the shrieks of teenage activity echo over the pool.

“How’s the water?” she asks Capt. G.
”It’s okay once you get in.”
“I am not believing you!” Black square trunked swimmer from what looks like could be the 1950’s Swedish Olympic Team asserts, shaking his head as he prepares to enter the pool. Capt. B and PP both laugh as they watch him jump in, his long strides breaking the smooth turquoise surface.

Diving in after him, PP feels the cold water wash away her day. She wasn’t gonna come tonight. But taking the next lap back, her arms cutting through the glassy water, she’s happy she did.

Grinning, PP turns and heads back down the lane, kicking fast with her fins, the moon now bigger and more magical. Damn that sounds corny, but hell, it’s true!

Now if only that raccoon would take the plunge!

Farewell to Mills?

PP’s just about had it with Mills. No, maybe this is not really goodbye, but hell, she just has one question? Don’t we lovely paying patrons get the very short time of 15 minutes to shower and change before being rushed outta the locker room? Isn’t that why the pool ‘closes’ at 4:45 instead of ‘5’? It’s a sneaky way of gyping us outta our swim actually. If the schedule said till 5 then….wait….PP is getting off the mad track here. Let’s start this again.

PP is goddamn sick and tired of being made to feel like a piece of guncky slimy hair on the shower floor if she takes one fuckin minute over the allotted 15 minutes to get dressed. PLEASE!!! What is the goddamn big deal here? Last Sunday, PP thought she’d try Mills at 4 after the sun’s zenith was gone. Consequently, when she swims her 45 minutes and then gets a paltry 5 minutes in the hot tub she understands that she’s gonna hafta shower and change more quickly. Yet…. But…… Suffice it to say that when she and another regular swimmer were rushing to get dressed at 4:48 with correct her if she’s wrong, 12 minutes to go, Miss Hard- Nose-I Have -A -Date -Can -You –Speed- It- Up-Any comes nosing in. “Are we almost done here ladies?”

Shit. No, are you my mother? I mean. PP is hurrying. J is hurrying. Lord knows we don’t want a naughty slow ladies scolding on a Sunday afternoon. Yet, it seems it can’t be avoided when this bitch is working. Oh, PP likes calling her a bitch. Hell, PP shoulda told her she’s had cancer and that’s why she can’t swim earlier cuz she hastsa stay outta the sun’s zenith. So fuck you bitch. You’re gonna be 3 minutes late for your ‘date.’ This is not the first time this has happened.

And on this Sunday, PP was well within the cut off range. “What time is it? She’d asked. Hurry Up Bitch glances at her fat wrist and makes a face. ‘ It’s about 4 minutes to 5. PP glares at her. ‘Okay then, I’ll be outta here in 4 minutes. “ HUB shakes her head in dismay, then clucks her fat tongue disapprovingly. “The sooner you can make it the better. I have a date.” PP wants to say, who the hell would date you? But holds her tongue. It takes more time to make snide comments and she needs that 4 minutes now. So stalking past her with her wet suit dripping dangerously close to HUB’s fat ankles, PP plops her unused hair dryer in her bag and glances over at J who’s even slower than PP and isn’t getting involved. PP thinks this is a bit cowardly on her part, but maybe she’s just trying to get the hell outta there too.

HUB slams outa the locker room, leaving PP and J alone for what’s left of the 4 minutes. “I hate it when they rush us out of here like that!” PP fumes. “Yeah.” J agrees. Isn’t she pissed off too? PP wonders. Damn. She needs a comrade in arms. Where’s the Lovely I or Gianna Panna when you need ‘em?

Tossing her wet stuff in her bag, then rummaging around for her keys, PP shakes her head. Is it really worth it? Isn’t swimming supposed to be a relaxing and restorative endeavor? Evidently not here at Mills where all they care about is their ‘dates’. Hell PP gets this. She’s worked enough retail. You’re tired. You’re hungry. You’re outa patience with the goddamn customers. But what can you do? You hafta wait for them to buy their books or put their 3 sugars, half a honey bear of sweetener & 6 tablespoons of half and half in their latte before you can go home. This is Extreme Customer Abuse. PP knows it well. But hell, she and J are within the 15 after swim time limit by 4 fuckin minutes!

Should she report HUB to the management? PP thinks not. She’ll just get her revenge on her blog. Thank god for writing! Its saves so much time, energy and confrontation.

Unless of course, by some happy miracle, HUB reads this.

Mario’s Pool Story

"You wanna hear a pool story?" PP always wants to hear pool stories!—plus it takes the pressure offa her to always come up with one so….. here’s Mario’s:

"I’ll tell ya a pool story. This one is a doozy. J and I really needed a swim after the plane ride up here, so D told us to check out the SFU pool, which we’d been to before. Really nice indoor pool. 50 meter. Not too crowded. So I get in the car and we drive through the hellish rush hour SF traffic to SFU and round and round the parking lot looking for a spot and finally aha! There’s a spot and so I grab it, but then it’s not really a spot it’s actually permit parking for the goddamn faculty or some such privileged parties damn! so I have to move the car and we drive around again for like hell 15 minutes and then finally another spot. Great. And so we get outta the car and hafta hike like I dunno 15 minutes up and around this big hill and we can't find the goddamn pool there was a sign but the sign was completely indecipherable so we hadda ask some college coed who kinda pointed us in the direction of the pool you could tell he didn’t really know but hell the kid was trying to be helpful anyway we figured it out and so then we finally get to the pool building and then we start circling around the catacombs of this building and I’m thinking where the hell is that pool? Is it upstairs or downstairs? Finally we find it and now it’s been like 45 minutes since we arrived and we’re really cranky and wanna go swimming and we get to the counter and tell the guy we wanna just swim for the day and he says, that’ll be 15 dollars and were like damn 15 dollars to swim for just one time but then what the hell, we’re on vacation and we really needed a swim so we say okay, what the hell and we go to give him the 15 bucks and then he says we needa picture ID and J has hers of course, but goddamnit I left mine in the car so I hafta go all the way back to the car and get my stupid ID, but when I get back to the car I see another parking place that’s closer to the pool so I think what the hell I’ll move the car and so I get in and drive back to this closer place but then by the time I get to the place it’s gone of course so I go back to the place I had the car but now it’s gone too so I have to drive around for another 20 minutes and finally find a place that’s even further away than the original place but what the hell and so I think to myself maybe I better bring some smaller cash in case they don’t wanna break a hundred so I reach in the glove compartment and pull out a few 10’s just to be on the safe side and head back up the hill to the pool and I get there and what do you know? I forgot my fuckin ID! So then, to make a long story short, I go back to the car and get my ID whew and head back to pay the guy and he takes the smaller bills and is I think thankful for that hell I don’t know really and so we go into our separate locker rooms and I get in there and get changed into my trunks and then goddamnit I can’t figure out how to get to the pool it’s a fuckin maze in that locker room so I wander around for like I dunno another 15 minutes and think how J must be wonderin where I am and when I finally do find my way out, there she is and she tells me she had the same problem in the women’s locker room too and no problem waiting. So she dives in and starts swimming her laps and then I get in and whoa! My goddamn trunks are all screwed up and I’m trying to fix ‘em and pulling on the string to get my suit to stay on and then the goddamn string fuckin breaks and I’m like fightin with myself underwater and this chick is staring at me like what the hell is that guy doing with himself underwater so I think I better just get out on to the deck and try to fix it and finally I get it to work but now I’m so tired and discouraged that I’m just standing there on the deck and my belly is all hanging out major sloucher like and I hear J yell at me “BELLY” and I look at her and think what the hell is she yelling about and then she yells again “BELLLLYYYY!” and I realize oh yeah I’m in complete slouch mode so I stand up tall and suck in my gut and dive in and you know what I hadda really great swim it was totally worth it, but hell, next time I gotta remember to bring that goddamn photo ID!"