As a Kid.....

 “As a Parent (and yes, Parent is capitalized), I think that my kid should be able to swim in the lap lanes if he can swim laps.”

The kid is shifting back and forth, his brown legs itching to dive in the pool. Ian and I are behind a mob of families at the Richmond Swim Center. Everyone wants to swim! But there’s a limit. The number of families allowed in the pool is what? I have no clue. For me, one family can be too much. But I get how exciting it is, too, for the kids. I remember being a kid and just living in the pool. Of course, when I was the age of this boy, I’m guessing he’s around 7 or 8, I had the privilege of swimming in my own backyard pool in Hacienda Heights. I’d go out every day and swim laps. 100.....200......250.....I never wanted to stop swimming.

    

        Yet, today, I don’t want to share my ‘adult’ lap lane with a bunch of kids.

            And, honestly, do they really swim laps?

            Parent Woman sighs loudly. “I mean, there are just so few pools open for family swim.”

            I nod, “Yeah, I heard that El Cerrito is open but doesn’t have Family Swim.”        

            “Exactly!” Parent Mom is so miffed. The nerve! Why aren’t the pools’ schedules built around her needs?

            I turn to the kid, “Do you know how to swim laps?”

            He shrugs, steps away from me, his blue and green palm tree trunks swaying in the waiting room. Then he glances up at me, “Kinda.”

            Parent Mom jumps on that! “He can.....I mean....he can swim laps for a while and then, you know...well...he’s a kid.”

            Exactly! He’s a kid! He can’t really swim laps! Nor should he have to unless he wants to. I was an unusual kid, going out to the backyard and logging in hundreds of laps a week when I was 10 years old. Most kids just want to jump in the water, do handstands, play Marco Polo, and hold each other’s heads under the water till someone cries “Uncle”!

            Not that I and my sisters didn’t do all of the above. Marco Polo was always a favorite. And when I still hear it today, I can’t believe that kids haven’t come up with another game. Or at least another call and response. What could they use that would be current? I don’t know. I think that it could be an educational or even literary game.

            Emily!

            Bronte!

Or

            Leo!

            Tolstoy!

Or

            Ernest!

            Hemingway!

Yet, I doubt this would catch on. How could a writer compete with a famous explorer who rampaged through Mongolia on horseback, beheading his enemies with viscous swipes of his mighty sword?

            Is that even what Marco Polo did?

            Pool games don’t really teach you anything, history, literature or fair play.

            Ian and I are at the front of the line now; Parent Mom and Kind of Lap Swim Kid have gone in ahead of us.

            “Is there room for us to swim laps?” I ask the harried attendant kid at the window.

            He turns the blue and green pool chart toward me, “I can put you in lanes 1 and 2.”

            “Great!”

            He punches my card, Ian hands me my bag, and I head into the locker room. The sounds of “MARCOOOO POLOOOO” ring out from the pool as I step around the huge puddles of water in the locker room and begin to unpack my stuff. 

Giovanni Scorcioni