A Wonderful Day at the Pool

As mentioned in a previous post, I am now swimming at the YMCA three days a week after work. I claimed to have swam 12 laps in the post and, in a way, I did. However, those are "ryan laps". A "ryan lap" is from one end of the pool to the other as opposed to the technical lap consisting of swimming to the opposite end and back. So technically, I only swam 6 laps...but 12 makes me feel better so I have designated them "ryan laps".

That little 7 year old joker who swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco has inspired me. If he can accomplish that, I can swim laps three times a week and I'm dedicated to doing it. However, there are some things that can get in the way of my dedication and one of those things happened today. I had gotten into the pool and completed 2 laps (4 ryan laps) and stopped to rest. The gentleman in the lane next to mine was resting at the same time so I struck up a conversation. I'm trying to talk to more strange people nowadays to prove to myself that I can do it. You see, I consider myself "socially challenged". I'm not the greatest conversationalist and usually keep to myself for the most part. Well, now I'm trying to break out of my cone of silence and talk to more people so I started talking to my new friend in the next lane. I then swam one more lap to make it a total of 3. In the process of swimming that lap, I heard a lifeguard blow his whistle. I knew I had done nothing wrong so I ignored it and continued swimming. By the time I completed that lap the lifeguard was waiting on me and told me that a kid threw up in the pool and an evacuation had been declared. They needed to take care of the problem with chemicals. When he told me that chunks had been blown in the pool where I was swimming, I almost "ralphed" myself. My day of swimming was cut short.

I went to the locker room to gather my stuff and began talking to somebody else. He had heard of the incident himself and was hoping the pool would reopen in the next 40 minutes because he had a swim class. I told him I probably couldn't get back in the pool knowing what had just happened. He said he didn't care because when he was a member of another sports club, he had actually seen excrement floating in the water and would just pick it up and put it in the skimmer. I almost threw up again when he said that! I immediately thought of the classic scene from Caddyshack when Bill Murray (a.k.a. Carl Spackler) drained the pool and found the Baby Ruth that had been mistaken for something else, sniffed it, and took a bite. I would not put that past this man I was talking to. What kind of a person is this?! Who willingly touches someone else's poo? I have to admit that I am emotionally scarred from today's events. Hopefully, I can recover in time to continue my swimming tomorrow. Needless to say, I will scan that pool like a hawk for any foreign objects that might be afloat. Oh the joy of a public pool.