YoooouWhoooo!

 

“YooooWhoooo!”

        I hear the call above me, like a great horned owl, but it can't be. I'm in the pool. Through the fog of my mask, I see Alice climbing down the ladder into my lane. Okay, this is fine. I can swim on one side; she can walk on the other.

            But it’s a crowded Sunday. I’m anxious about this development. Technically, Alice needs to be in the designated ‘walking’ lane instead of my designated ‘shallow lap’ lane. But since it’s crowded, I think how it’ll be okay to have one swimmer and one walker.

I was wrong!

            Here comes Bella. She’s the wife of The Creep. We call him that because of his vibe. It’s creepy. What can I say? There is something about him that is a little pervy, a little suspect. He’s never done anything to me, like The Perv, but still….he gives me the creeps!  But, I like her fine. She’s always friendly and she’s okay to swim with cuz she doesn’t splash a lot. But today? What is she doing climbing into the lane with Alice and me here already? How can we circle swim with Alice walking?

            It’s not going to work!

            “Hello, Carol,” she smiles at me calmly.

            “Hey, Bella.” I glance down the lane at Alice, chugging away in the center.

            “She says that she can walk down the middle between us,” Bella nods, still smiling.

            “Really?” I shake my head. How the hell is that going to work? There isn’t room for 3 people to move up and down a lane without crashing into each other. Esp if Bella is doing her wide breaststroke (okay, she doesn’t splash, but she does take up a lot of room)

            Why isn’t she swimming with her creepy husband?

            “We’ll figure it out,” Bella says serenely as she takes off down the lane.

            I just stand at the wall, shaking my head. This is NOT going to work. What the hell are these women thinking?

            Obviously, they don’t care about swimming!

            “CAROL!!!! CAROOOOLLLL!!”

            I hear someone hollering my name. I can’t see a damn thing because of my foggy mask, but the voice sounds like it’s coming from the other side of the deep pool.

            I climb out of the insane lane and head toward the sound of the shouting.

            Now I spy my friend, Liv, springy strawberry curls out of her cap. She’s finished swimming it looks like.

            “You done?” I ask, plopping into the water before she answers.

            “Yes, it’s all yours,” she nods knowingly. Somehow, she saw the disaster waiting to happen back where I was and hollered to the rescue!

            “Thank you SO much!” I gush, before diving under the water and heading toward the opposite wall. The lane free and clear for me. What a narrow escape!

            As I swim, I think about how stupid the two women were. Think about what I will say when I inevitably see them in the locker room. Do I call them idiots? Ask them what was going through their brains to think that the three of us could share the lane in that dynamic? Two swimmers and one walker?

            I swim a few hundred yards, then pause to take off my fins. Trade them in for the pull buoy. Notice how Bella has moved too. She is in the middle lane now with her Creep Husband. They are partaking of gross face kissing in the pool! Ugh! They always do this and it’s so yucky! But at least I’m not swimming with them.

            Later, when I am back in the locker room and, of course, it’s just Alice and Bella, I refrain from taking them to task.

            “Oh, darn!” Alice harrumphs! “I forgot my underwear!”

            We all chuckle.

            “But at least I have my bra! Can’t live without that!”

            “I don’t have to worry about a bra,” Bella observes as she pulls her gray sweatshirt over her head with a strange black image on it that looks like a spade with a devil tail on it. “I am so flat. I just use those pasties. I feel so free!” she proclaims.

            Alice lets out a guffaw! “You’re lucky! Mine would be hitting the floor by now if I didn’t wear a bra!”

            I can’t help but laugh at them. Who could be mad at these two women? They’re hilarious!

            I pull my big parka on over my layers of sweaters before heading out the door.

“You ladies have a great rest of your Sunday,” I call out.

            “You too, Carol!” they both answer.

            As I rush out of the facility into the windy winter afternoon, I can’t help but grin to myself. Yoooouwhoooo indeed!

             

She’s Chinese

 

 

“You’re just like my wife. Hafta get your laps in!”

Pineapple Swim Trunks Man, too tan white guy, middle aged, eyes that wander without focus, eases himself into the hot tub where I’m recovering from a rather invigorating swim in the unheated pool. A zebra dove calls in the background as the palm trees whisper overhead. Puffy white clouds drift lazily in front of the emerald crags of Kaneohe’s mountains. I was relaxing, beginning to warm my frozen hands, but now?

Not knowing his wife, I just nod, agree that getting my laps in is a priority. But his tone had been disparaging. Like getting in your laps is somehow a waste of time or something that is beneath him. I can’t gauge what the issue is with his wife…. yet…

“She’s at Costco now.”

I frown, shake my head. “That sounds awful!” I sink a little further into the hot water, watching as a redheaded cardinal swoops down and lights atop the fence. Costco would be the last place I’d wanna be at any time, let alone in Hawaii.

“Yeah, well, if you’re gonna do it, I guess today is as good a day as any. Like she needs more stuff! The other day we were cleaning out a pile of junk and I found a receipt from Radio Shack from 1972! And I said to her, ‘I don’t think we need this anymore.’ But she never throws anything away.  What do you expect? She’s Chinese.”

I’m still processing the receipt from 1972 and agreeing with him in my mind that it probably can be thrown away when he tosses in the line about her being Chinese and that’s why she’s a hoarder.

Later, as Ian and I are strolling down the lovely shore of Kahana Bay, the sand a smooth caramel color, the aqua water lapping at our feet in languid warm waves, Ian mentions this comment and I say how racist it was and how sorry I felt for this poor woman that’s married to this jerk.

I have never heard of this derogatory bias against the Chinese---that they are hoarders. But I live in the Bay Area and even if somebody thought this, they would never utter it aloud. Sometimes, I forget that the area I live in is sensitive and respectful of other cultures more so than other parts of the world, even Hawaii. Here in Kaneohe, even though the environment is paradise, the military culture had taken over. Nothing against the military---well, maybe I have a little bias against the military, but that’s a whole other blog. I do, however, think that there may be a lot of derogatory biases against other races in the military, particularly women, and women of color doubly so. Of course, I don’t have any proof that Racist Guy is in the military or is ex-military. It’s just a vibe. One of narrow-minded dismissiveness. Of swimming. Of women. Of other races than himself.

As Ian and I continue our stroll down the beach, we spy a little girl, busy in the sand, building something. As we walk past, she calls out to her mom: “Mommy! Look! I’m making pizza!”

Ian and I laugh, delighted by her imagination, but another part of me thinks how, of course she’s ‘cooking’ something. Preparing a meal for her family. It’s woman’s work starting at an early age.

Let’s just hope that when she grows up, she doesn’t marry someone like Racist Guy who belittles her to total strangers in the hot tub. That her industry is rewarded instead of ridiculed. That even though she comes from the white privileged class, she learns to accept and respect other races and cultures.

How will this happen?

One pizza at a time. One pizza at a time…