The Conditioner Thief

 

The swim today was hard. I had no energy, but I plowed on. Post swim, I’m very tired, but the shower helped. It always does.  

    Now, I’ve just come out of the bathroom stall after taking my shower. I always leave my suit hanging on the hooks and my shampoo and conditioner bottles on the floor while I’m in the bathroom.

            But today, when I bend down to scoop the bottles off the floor, I notice that the conditioner bottle is ‘squeezed’ in the middle. What? I would never leave it like this. Did someone use some of my conditioner while I was peeing?

            Oh, yes! Of course, Conditioner Woman would! She’s in the shower now and she’s the only one left in the locker room.  

            It hasn’t happened in a while, but there was a period where she’d come into the communal shower and ask me if she could ‘borrow’ a little of my conditioner. At first, I just said, “I don’t have much to spare, so maybe someone else has some.” And she’d go on to the next unsuspecting soapy naked woman in the shower. “Hello? Would you mind if I use a little of your conditioner?”

            Sometimes, a generous patron, such as Alice, would laugh and hand over her big bottle of conditioner: “SURE! Help yourself. I’ve got plenty to spare.”

            But other times, Conditioner Woman had no luck with procuring some product.

            She’d repeat this with me every week: “Hi, do you have a little conditioner that I could borrow?”

            And I got to the point where I’d just glare at her through my soapy face and hiss, “NO!”

            So, today, when I found my conditioner bottle ‘used’ I knew who the culprit was: Conditioner Woman. She had actually waited for me to go to the bathroom and then had stolen some of my conditioner while I was gone!

            I just couldn’t believe it.

            To make it even more awkward, she’s a librarian at the Richmond Public Libraries and I’d talked to her colleague at the Main Branch about doing a reading of my forthcoming novel, Adam and Leonora, this summer. I’d mentioned this to Conditioner Woman a few weeks ago, asking her if she knew her colleague, Alicia Rodriguez, at the Main Branch.

            “Oh, yes, she’s really nice. Let me know what happens with your reading.”

            All perfectly normal and professional and friendly.

            But now, do I have to let her steal my conditioner without saying anything in order to get a reading at the local library?

            This seems a bit far-fetched!

            Today when she came out of the shower, she didn’t make eye contact me. Conditioner Theft Guilt?

            Or simply in a hurry.

            I thought, for a moment, of asking her if I could borrow some conditioner from her. But then thought better of it. I know my pointed humor would probably be lost on her. But it might make her squirm!

            Or could a Conditioner Thief feel remorse? I mean, what’s the big deal anyway? It’s only conditioner, right?

            Right. But it’s the history of this incident that is intriguing to me. I mean, what the hell is her deal? Does she forget it? Does she not have the money for it? Does she just like to steal? For the thrill of it? What if I had come out of the bathroom stall right at the moment she was taking it or putting it back? What would she have done? What would I have done?

            “Hey! PUT THAT DOWN! That’s my conditioner! You can’t have it!”

            Are we 5 years old?

            In any case, I’m not leaving my conditioner on the floor anymore when I go to the bathroom. I’m taking it with me into the stall.

            Does this seem a bit extreme?

            No. I have to protect my conditioner. After all it is expensive. And I don’t want it to disappear without my consent.

            Or as Kenny Rogers sang, “I have to keep track of the condition of my conditioner.”

            Esp when thieving librarians are on the prowl!

Kenny Rogers & The First Edition: Condition

BEAUTY

 

“For me, it’s all about Beauty. About being one with the water….”

LS’s voice drifts off, lost in thought? 

Our small after swim group had been talking about the various approaches to swimming: the zone, the techinique, the beauty?

Of course, this makes sense that LS would  say Beauty. She is, after all, an artist. And artists, at least the ones I know, are all about Beauty. Yet, how does Beauty translate to swimming?

            I think she puts it well—to be one with the water. Of course, this isn’t an uncommon claim. I think it’s the reason I swim---to be one with the water. To be the water. To feel its warm embrace. To float in its gravity free environ.

            Yet is this Beauty?

            I’m more about ‘cute’ than Beauty. In fact, this morning, as I was getting ready to head out to the pool, I was in the locker room, frantically tucking my too long hair in my bright pink cap when a little girl, maybe 4 or 5, and her mom emerged from one of the bathroom stalls.

            I didn’t really pay attention to them, just noticed them from the corner of my eye. But as I was about to put my mask on, the mom smiled over at me and said: “She said for me to tell you that she thinks you’re so cute.”

            OMG! Make my day little girl!

            I turned to her, grinning, and returned the compliment: “You’re so cute too!”
            She gave me a big bright smile and you know what? Here was beauty! The smile of a child that lights up a locker room. And, I was the cause of it!

            They headed out as I headed into the Natatorium, the noisy chaos of swim lessons echoing through the hallway. But I was floating. Even before I got in the pool.

            I couldn’t remember the last time someone had told me I was ‘cute’ except for Ian, of course, and he better!

            It used to be something that I took for granted. Being cute. I had cute hair. A cute nose. Cute feet.

            But beauty?

            I never thought of myself as a ‘beauty.’ There were women that I’ve known who are beautiful: DL, GP, my mom and sisters.

            And of course, when LS had mentioned the ‘beauty’ of swimming later, I don’t think she meant that it was a visual beauty---though, for me, this is part of it. The way the light hits the water as I stroke through it; the way the clouds float through the skylight as I swim backstroke.

            No, beauty in swimming is really that feeling of not being a separate being from the water, but to be the water.

            And sometimes, when I’m swimming (not all the time), I do feel this way. That I’m not separate from the water. My movement through it is easy and graceful and beautiful.

            But today, I’m happy with being ‘so cute’!

            Cuz, frankly, cute can beautiful too, esp when you're five years old and the world is a big beautiful so cute adventure!

Earthquake?

 

The blast of the whistle screams at me from above. Initially, I ignore it. They’ve been having lifeguard training at Kennedy High Pool for weeks now. Always blowing the whistle. Throwing bricks in the water. Lifeguards in training jumping in to save the brick.

            It’s alarming and distracting. And meaningless as far as what a whistle should mean: someone is in trouble and get in and save them. Or danger danger! There’s a shark in the pool!

            So, today, a calm and blissful Saturday morning with no screaming kids in swim lessons and my own quiet lane, when I hear the whistle blast, I don’t stop swimming.

            It screams again. This time accompanied by Juan’s yelling: “EVERYONE OUT OF THE POOL! NOW!!!! OUT OF THE POOL!”

            I stop swimming, stand in the shallow sun glittering water and stare up at him. I’d just gotten in 3 minutes ago. There was still a little less than an hour left to swim. What gives?

            “What’s going on?” I ask now, shaking my head. I do NOT want to get out. I can’t see what the reason would be, but the other few people that are swimming are heaving themselves out of the pool and onto the deck.

            “Earthquake,” Juan announces.

            “Are you serious?” I ask.

            “Yeah, everyone has to get out of the pool for 30 minutes.”

            “I didn’t feel anything,” I start to argue. I really need to swim. I had missed the day before. There were no kids in the pool today. I had my own lane. Besides! I had just gotten in! What good does swimming for 3 minutes do?

            Nothing. Except for extreme frustration!

            “Yeah, well, trust me,” Juan says in answer to my not feeling anything, “it happened. We all felt it here on the deck.”

            I climb out of the pool, using the ladder, shaking in anger. I can’t yell at anyone. I can’t blame the lifeguard. If there really was an earthquake? Maybe if you’re swimming you can’t feel it? Evidently.

            But as I glance back at the beautiful empty pool, I’m livid. Why oh why? What are the chances of being in the pool when an earthquake happens? And to not even feel it?

            It feels so WRONG!

            “Why 30 minutes?” I ask another guard whom I don’t know. He’s young (they mostly all are) and cute—(again, they mostly all are) with a blonde streak through his shiny hair. “Is there some sort of evidence around this time limit to stay out?”

            He looks at me like I’m insane. “There must be….” he says softly, walking away from me.

            “You guys can come back and swim in 30 minutes,” Juan is announcing now, “but by then the pool will only be open for 15 more minutes. So, we can give you a FREE swim today and sorry about that.”

            “A free swim tomorrow doesn’t do me any good today,” I mutter under my breath, but probably a little too loudly.

            “We can have a pool party! We can go take showers for 30 minutes. Wash our hair. Sing and dance!” Wendy giggles, shaking her thick dark mass of hair in wild anticipation of the pool party.

            I can’t help but laugh. She isn’t fazed by being kicked out of the pool by a non-felt earthquake.

            And what would happen to us anyway if we stayed in the pool? It’s not like a tsunami is gonna sweep us away. Or a huge crack is going to appear in the bottom of the pool and we’ll be sucked under the concrete earth into a huge chasm of molten lava!

            I head into the locker room, behind Wendy, who’s still going on about the pool party to LS, who has given me a sweet look of empathy about being kicked out of the pool.

            “Aren’t you frustrated?” I ask her as we head into the showers.

            “I can’t complain,” she admitted. “I did swim for 3 hours at the Plunge yesterday!”

            “3 hours!” I can’t wrap my head around this right now. I just know that today I only got 3 minutes in the pool.

            And damn! I sure can complain!

            There’s nothing more frustrating than a Thwarted Swim. Esp if it’s thwarted by an imaginary earthquake.

            I still don’t believe it.

            I hear the whistle again. Or is it just my imagination?

            As I dry off after my shower, I sigh VERY loudly. I’ll just have to go for a walk. At least there won’t be any whistles blaring at me in my neighborhood.

            Unless, of course, there’s another earthquake?