NEGATIVE EXPECTATIONS

“Did you have a nice swim?” PP asks her Lane Mate, now across from her in the shower.
“Oh, yeah….I needed it.”
Laughing, PP nods. Knows what she means. When you need a swim, you really need a swim.
“Yeah, I didn’t know what time the pool closed today,” LM continues, stripping off her bikini bottoms. PP tries not to stare. Even after all these years of swimming and communal showers, she still works hard at the Nonchalant Shower Etiquette. But LM is sexy in that swimmer works out way. Lean and muscular, with barely an ass but the flat tummy and wait, she hasn’t seen her breasts yet…..
“….so, when I got here, I thought the pool closed at 4:45 (it was round 4:20 when they’d gotten in the lane together), “cuz last year they did.”
“So you were pleasantly surprised?” PP finishes for her.
“Yeah. I had Negative Expectations.”

PP nods as she tries not to watch her take off the bikini top. But she does anyway, just a little out of the corner of her soapy eye—her breasts were surprisingly large with those big round brown circles surrounding the nipples. PP likes looking at breasts. They all have such different personalities. These were decidedly athletic, too, but with a touch of womanly vigor about them.

Tearing herself away from her nipple analysis, PP nods again, “Yeah, I know what you mean about Expectations. I wasn’t too hopeful either when I got here. It was so crowded. But then it worked out…..” Her voice trailed off as LM soaped up, involved in her shower toilette now. The chit chat over.

And PP has to wonder, what is it about these expectations that we all have surrounding swimming? For she too, often has ‘Negative Expectations’—today, for instance, at the Golden Bear Pool. Besides the crowds, she couldn’t get her goddamn mask to not leak….grrrrrr……and this pool, while cute and scenic with the eucalyptus trees surrounding the redwood decks and the grassy hillside with Mr. Yoga man doing hilarious balancing exercises, had way too much chlorine. PP had to wear her mask or she’d go blind from the chlorine red eye.

So was a trial, esp. with sharing a lane. And then Mr. Yoga got in their lane and here we go again with the dreaded circle swim. The lanes at Golden Bear were narrow and claustrophobic and PP knocked into the Serious Butterfly Guy in the lane next to her a couple of times when she finally threw the mask off in a fit of frustration and tried swimming with her eyes closed.

Yet, it all worked out in the end. The end lane opened up and PP got it all to herself, leaving her sexy LM to split the lane with Yoga Man. The water temp was cool, but not as cold as Heather Farms, and so though there was no Hot Tub like the Y or Mills, PP knew she could look forward to a Hot Shower here at Golden Bear.

And who could really complain as she watched her sexy LM, towel off in an efficient sporty way right outside the shower so as to not get the floor wet. (Like it mattered; the floors at Golden Bear were pretty yucky, though they tried with those plastic wholly mats.)

Negative Expectations? Sure PP had had them too when she’d started her swim this Sunday afternoon, but then, with her own lane, Sexy LM shower and even despite the leaking mask (What to do about this? Any ideas fellow swimmer readers? Goggles bruise PP’s eyes, and the masks leak….it’s a BIG dilemma!) Golden Bear Pool had been a good back up choice for this week without the Y.

Sometimes Negative Expectations can actually work in one’s favor. If you always expect the worst, when the happy positives happen, why, it’s even more satisfying and delightful.

Especially when the showers are HOT!