The Nose Picker

“How was the water this morning?” PP’s tired and needs to swim but has to vicariously through Wondrous Admin’s Swim instead since she's stuck at WWU reading last minute stupid student papers.

“It was really warm!” WA exclaims as PP tries to focus on yet another run-on sentence.
“That’s good. It was way too cold yesterday.”

WA nods, “Did I tell you about the Nose Picker?”
PP cracks up. “No, please do!”
“Well.” WA shakes her head as she launches into the story, stepping a bit closer into PP’s office.
”I was swimming my laps, minding my own business, when I glanced down the lane at the woman I’d been sharing with and she was just going at it, picking her nose till she pulled out a Big One and then I swear, she just took IT and put it in the water.”
“Are you kidding?”




WA shakes her head, “I wish I were, but I don’t think so. And so, I was on my kickboard coming toward her when I witnessed this and I hollered at her, “You didn’t just do THAT!”
“Really?” PP grins, “Good for you!”
“Yeah, well, she denied it. When I confronted her, she just looked at me and said, “I didn’t do anything.’ And when I said, ‘I saw you pick your nose and then put IT in the water!’ and she said, ‘No, I just wiped IT on my suit.’”
“Which was in the water, right?”
“Oh yeah, but she claimed that she had gotten out of the water by the time she wiped IT on her suit.”




“Which is so much better!” PP wrinkles her nose and tries to imagine why anyone would so blatantly pollute the pool.
"Exactly!" WA shakes her head again, completely disgusted and mystified.

And then PP's mind went to wondering WHO it coulda been since she knows everyone that swims at the Y. Was it Flailing Chinese Woman? Or Grey Hair Hanging In Her Face So She Swims On Your Side Of The Lane Woman? Or Incensed At the Lack Of Lane Management Woman? Or Smells Like Roasted Chicken Woman? Or…..?

Unfortunately, WA left before PP could ask for the physical description of The Nose Picker.

But in retrospect, maybe this is for the best.

PP didn’t really want to know if she was sharing a lane with The Nose Picker.

Or did she?

HEY!!!

"HEY!!! HEY!!!!"

PP hears the rude demands before she knows they are aimed at her or by whom. And when she discovers who it is, well, she can’t believe it, but then she can!

"HEYYYY!!!!"

Again, the loud, demanding obnoxious hollering across 3 lanes of the pool and she turns around. Damn. It’s stupid Paddle Man, gesturing and yelling at her with his paddled hands, and foggy goggles and wet mustache and generally unappetizing demeanor.




What the hell could he want from her? And why just yell “Hey”? Why not use something a bit more civil such as, “Excuse me, Beautiful Gracious Benevolent Pool Purrs Swimmer?”

Cause it was PM and he knows no Civility. Let alone graciousness or manners or anything but his own selfish needs and of course this is what the yelling was all about.

“HEY!!!”

”Are you yelling at me?” PP asks, perturbed and grossed out.

“Yeah, can I swim in THAT lane?” He gestures to PP’s lane that she’s hereto been languidly and miraculously enjoying in solitary abandon.

She wants to say, NO! Just on anti-PM Rudeness Principal, but decides that she probably can’t get away with this, so she grudgingly assents, “I suppose,” she hollers back.

“I WANT THAT LANE!!!” he continues to holler. What the hell is he talking about? Oh, he wants the left side of the lane, the calmer side of the lane, the one next to the water walkers and not the one next to Massive Wave Generation Butterfly Man. Hell. She was here first. Shouldn’t she get to choose which side to swim on? Not relinquish the better half to PM of all people?




But she relents. Throws up her hands in exasperation. It’s not worth arguing with him about it. Besides, would he even get IT?

No. He’s Paddle Man. The Most Obnoxious and Rude Swimmer in the Pool that day.

Or maybe any day…..

Poo is for the Birds

“Why did they close the pool, Mommy?”

“Well, Danny, they had to close the pool because they found some poo in the pool.”
Danny wrinkled his nose in appropriate disgust.
“Sometimes this happens, though,” Mommy continued.

PP glanced down at her chocolate brownie cliff bar and felt a slight wave of nausea as she finished her last bite.





Mommy had a mission, though, and that mission was to soothe Danny so he wouldn’t start crying cause the pool was closed. (Fortunately, PP had already swum and so was spared the trauma of being ejected from the pool in midswim because of a Brown Alert. Though as DHBF pointed out between bites of chewy pooh, no, chewy cliff bar, who knows how long the poo had been there. It coulda been there while they’d been swimming for all they knew.)

PP didn’t want to think about it.

But was being forced to because of Danny.
“You remember Uncle Josh?” Mommy had her telling a story for a message voice on.
“Yeah.”
“When he was very young, younger than you even, he pooed in the pool.”
Danny made a suitable yuck face.
“And we all had to get out of the pool and Uncle Josh felt very bad that he’d pooed in the pool...”
”Why did he poo in the pool, Mommy?”
“That’s a good question, Danny. Sometimes these things just happen. They can’t be helped.”
“So is that what happened today? Did Uncle Josh poo in the YMCA Pool?”
Mommy chuckled, shaking her head, “Oh, Danny. You’re so funny. No of course not. You know that’s not possible. Uncle Josh isn’t even here. That story I told you was from a very long time ago. Before you were even born...”
Danny nodded as he leaned,longingly, into the foggy glass barrier above the now empty pool as Stacked Lifeguard dipped the long net into the far corner of the pool to scoop up the poo. (Or at least this is what it looked like. It was hard to believe that this was in the lifeguard's job description--Poo Retrieval!)

“Can we go swimming now?” Danny asked.

“No, honey, that’s what I’ve been trying to explain. They have to keep the pool closed for the next 24 hours and clean it out and then tomorrow you can go swimming.”
Danny sighed heavily. He really wanted to swim. PP got this and was glad that her swim was finished even if she had been poo pool exposed.
“But listen, Danny, you know what we can do? We can go down to the lake and look at the birds. What do you think of that?”
Danny shrugged. Birds weren’t quite what he had in mind. How could such an outing to view our feathered friends compare with a swim?

PP watched as Mommy took Danny by the hand and led him out of the Y lobby , Danny craning his neck to get one last glimpse of the pool.

Hell, it looked okay from his vantage point. Why couldn’t he go swimming?

Oh, yeah, it was that Stupid Uncle Josh. Well. Next time he saw him he was gonna ask him why he pooed in the pool.

Until then, he’d just have to make do with the birds.
And you all know what can happen with them....don't you?