“…r…t…a…” Patiently, the woman in the huge red swim parka spells out her name. Ramona, the woman behind the glass today at Kennedy High Pool, turns to the computer and starts to type in the letters.
I stand
behind Spell-Out Woman, flicking my cardboard ticket back and forth loudly between my fingers in annoyance. There
is always some issue with swimmers checking in. I’m not sure what it is. An
archaic computer system? Flustered staff that can’t process requests? Mercury is
perpetually in retrograde at Kennedy High Pool?
Spell Out Woman turns to glance at me. Well, I am being obnoxious flicking my ticket back
and forth. I stop.
“Can’t they find you in the system?” I ask.
“You’d
think they’d know my name,” she answers, miffed in a low-key way. “I’ve been
coming here for 40 years.”
I nod. Did
she really say 40 years? Has this building and pool even been here that long?
Finally, Ramona
finds her in the computer and checks her in. Spell out woman pushes a 5$ dollar
bill across the counter, and then heads into the locker room. Hell, she wasn’t even buying a ticket book?
“Hi, Ramona,”
I greet, shoving my ticket across the counter at her and glancing at the
plastic sheet showing the lane assignments. Only a few lanes were filled in. “Looks
like it’s not too crowded today,” I observe.
“Yes….” She
punches my ticket. “I throw away for you, okay?”
“Oh, yeah,
thanks. Finished, huh?” Damn, now I have to be found in the system. Well, I’ll
do it next time. Now I have to get into the pool before it gets too crowded.
The unexpected lack of a crowd is almost exhilarating considering how full the
pool has been since the 4 person per lane has been instituted. Not that I’ve
had to swim with 3 other people. This would be a nightmare. But there was a moment
last Sunday where I thought I was going to have to circle swim with 2 other
swimmers.
That’s a
whole other story though.
Today, I
take lane 2, which according to Ramona at this moment was empty, and head into
the locker room.
Spell Out Woman
had shed her parka and was hanging up her clothes in the green pool bag.
“Did you
say you’d been coming here for 40 years?” I ask, thinking how I must have misheard
her.
“Yes. I went to the Plunge and then when they opened the pool here, I started coming here. And they still don’t know my name!” she exclaimed.
I smile
behind my mask. “What is your name?”
“Carol.”
“Carol?
Really, me too!”
“Me too!” Another woman, who’d been quietly getting
dressed, chimed in.
“Are you
kidding?” I say. “We’re all named Carol?”
The women
laugh and nod.
“3 Carols
in one locker room? Wow! We should start singing!” I suggest. “Deck the halls
with boughs of holly fa la la la laaa….”
They both
smile, but don’t join in. I guess the joke about Christmas maybe didn’t
translate so early in the day.
Carol #3
asks me, “Were you born in the 1940s?”
Oh shit, I think. I know I didn’t get any sleep last night what with EBMUD digging up my street at 7 am., but do I really look like I’m in my 70s?
“Uh, no,” I
say, “late 1950s. I guess Carol was a popular name back then.”
“Yes,”
Carol #3 says. “You’re probably the last of the Carols.”
I laugh. “Yes, probably.” And I think about telling the story of my name and how my mom was pregnant at Christmas with me and so Carols were in the air. Hence the name Carol. But we all just want to get in the pool or get out of the locker room.
Carol #2 is on her way out of the locker room and into the pool. “Have a good swim, Carol!” I wave to her.
“Thanks,
you too, Carol,” she quips.
Carol # 3
toddles over to the mirror and starts to yank a comb through her wet hair.
“It’s good to put a name to the bag,” she says, pointing to
my Cat and Books swim bag. All the illustrations are of classic books with cat puns.
“Oh, yeah,”
I say, holding the bag up to admire Anna Purrinina and F. Scott Catsgerald.
“Nothing better than cats and books!” I proclaim.
“Indeed!”
she agrees, tugging a final snarl out of her scraggly locks.
I head out
to the pool, humming Deck the Halls, the late morning light creating a shimmering aqua water square on lane 8, and thinking to myself, what are the odds that 3 Carols would
be in the locker room at Kennedy High Pool?
A million
to 1? A gazillion to 1? Infinity to 1?
I grin, grabbing a kickboard and pull bouy from the trash can filled with them, and stride out onto the deck. The aqua light waves to me, small ripples bounce lightly on the surface of the water. I nod to the lifeguard who gives me a hearty, "How ya doin' today."
I sit on the edge of the deck. Take a deep breath. Dive in. Begin to stroke down the lane. Fa la la la laaa la la la laaaa!
