I have a love-hate relationship with the fourth week in May. It is during this period every year that I renew my membership to the community pool; it is also the weekend that I am reacquainted with other pool patrons. Two years ago, I left the registration line after waiting for forty minutes because the woman in front of me had a braid down to her knees and armpit hair.
"I can't swim with that!" I cried to my husband.
"Why do you care?" he replied. "You never go in the pool!"
After reminding me that it was just my children who would be swimming with Rapunzel, I got back into line.
Last summer, I obsessed over a middle-aged man with chest hair that rose over his shoulder blades like a tidal wave and poured down his back.
This year, I'm worried that the man who swims in his jeans and t-shirt is going to bother me.
"You're no prize yourself," my husband pointed out. He held up one of my tankini swimsuits as proof.
I disregarded my husband's opinion of the community pool patrons and my fashion sense as uninformed and unfairly biased.
"They probably pee in the pool," I grumbled.
"They wouldn't be the first," my husband said. That's when he reminded me of the hot July day three summers ago when one of ours pulled down his pants at the edge of the kiddie pool and urinated into the water.
****
Does anyone feel the need to confess?
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Oh man. I try so hard to sit at the pool all summer and NOT see those people and NOT think about all the disgusting kids who never get out of the pool all day long to go to the bathroom.
Just think of all the fun people watching you get to do!
My son takes swim lessons at our sportsclub pool. Last week I had a hard time watching his lesson b/c I was too busy focusing on the college team swim guy doing laps. He was buff and handsome. I love to watch people. Think of all the stories you will have over the summer to tell us. You need to get a pic of Rapunzel and post it. Get one of those black bars for her eyes. Happy swimming. Take care.
-Kiki
this weekend we were swimming in our pool and my husband had his back to our 3 year old and felt something spraying his neck so he turned around to see that he was being pee'd on! well, he went to turn him around and when he was turning he got our 9 year old! he just got in the line of fire, our 3year old wasn't paying attention. needless to say, i about drowned because i was laughing so hard. so we had to have the NO PEEING IN THE POOL talk.
We went swimming in the hotel pool at Disneyland a few weeks ago. What does it mean when the pool water tastes salty?
My grandparents used to have a sign by their hot tub that said: "Welcome to our 'OOL'. Notice, it doesn't have any 'P' in it. Please keep it this way." I wish I would have requested the sign when they got rid of it. It may have come in handy a few times.
Great...thanks for that picture. Now, I'm for sure NOT joining the local rec center pool. :) If my kids complain, I'm blaiming you. lol
According to a recent CNN article (http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/22/pools.urinate.hygiene/index.html), about 17% of US citizens admit to peeing in the pool. It references an interview with Michael Phelps from 2008 in which he admitted, as well.
Gross.
My kids are old enough to go to the pool without me. I've never been so happy to see a child turn twelve as when my daughter hit that milestone.
The lady I laughed at every day, though, was the one who wore the long black "dress" with three inch platform heels, complete with big chandelier earrings.
Made me feel real good in my cover up - gym shorts and a Cubs shirt.
Connie - Most of the pools these days are salt water. It's easier on the clothes, hair, eyes. Be glad you had an updated pool.
I can't think of a time when my kids weren't throwing up in the pool. They swallow water and instantly barf. I try to get it out as quick as I can without anyone noticing. Yuck! Worse than pee?
Confess to peeing in the pool? Oh sure. I grew up in Phoenix Arizona, pools are a way of life there, and when you're a kid you can't hold it, the pool just brings it out you know. You don't think about all the nasty diseases associated with that habit. Fortunately, I have overcome that. (I am 23 now, I should at least be able to not pee in a pool, although you're right, there are other questionable people out there and I wonder if they ever got the "dude you aren't three stop peeing in the pool" memo.)
Just stay out of the kiddie pool.
here, they put a dye that reacts to urine so the little one has a purple cloud following them. We also have a huge park foundation that raises money to give away swim suits. no hairy men in cut off jeans here! yea! for almost 100 years our city had free swim. now we have six brand new pools opening this year and people are complaining about paying $2.50, are you kidding me?! where else can you get this much entertainment for so little?
Our local pool opened this weekend also. We love it but yes there are quite a few odd birds. Last year I swung open the co-ed locker room door (because it is closer to the exit of course) when leaving. A woman who forgot to pull the curtain and lock the door was showering completely naked for all the other pool patrons to see. She yelled at me in her native tongue none of which I could understand. (I had seen this woman over the years once asking me to watch her infant child while she, her husband and other child swam. I was just reading so I didn't say no.) How could this woman yell at me for opening the door when she had two opportunities to lock the door and pull the shower curtain. I couldn't help myself as she yelled at me, I leaned forward and roared in her face to "PULL THE CURTAIN NEXT TIME, LADY!" Needless to say I never saw her at the pool again. Thank you for letting me share.
There is a family in our neighborhood that buys an annual pass each year.
I am certain their pool time is also their bath time.
Summer is the only time of year they don't smell so bad that your eyes water...
I love chlorine, I love chlorine, I love chlorine...
I try to convince myself every year what a fool all those country clubbers are, for paying thousands of dollars a year for a pool, when I get the city pool with a water slide and a cheap snack bar for $100 buckaroonis. And then I spend one day sharing the extremely crowded pool with some questionable characters and thousands of kids screaming, come home with a raging migraine, and think 'you get what you pay for'.
The good news is that there's SO much chlorine in those public pools that virtually nothing can survive.
Not even your eyes.
I just stumbled upon your blog, and I am just laughing...I thought I was the meanest mom, and funny coincidence we have the same name, and my son's name is Kellen too (except we spell it Kellan)....I am sure I will be checking in on your blog often :)
I used to work for an apartment complex and I swear, EVERY YEAR some kid would poop in the pool!
Yes, poop.
I will never swim in a public pool again.
oh GAWD. just when i wrote a blog post patting myself on the back for NOT joining the country club and going 'public' this summer, and i had to read this.
this will be our first summer in a public pool. me, all happy and on my high horse about saving money (see 'Staycation') and now I want to run crying back to the country club and solitude...too many visuals, people, too many visuals. HELP. i (used to?) love swimming...
WHAT?! those beauty magazines have been calming my fears by saying everyone is either (A) having too much fun to notice how I look in a swim suit or (B) too concerned about their own appearance to notice mine. Apparently my concerns are validated.
On a positive notice, my 4 year old got out of the pool at her lessons because she had to go. Odd. When clorine is there to sanitize the urine she won't go, but at home in the tub she pees almost as soon as she sits down.
Yuck public pools. All that hair and water can't make a good potion..
If I see an overtly hairy man stewing in a hot tub I always pass. I usually catch those dudes on cruise ships!
Okay, but at least he did not poo in the pool, unlike Anymommyoutthere's kid! And at least you did not have to go into the pool to pick it up and get it out of there!(She's blogged about it so I'm not telling tales out of school.)
Oh, I put up more pictures of Charlie, come and see how cute she is :=)
I am disgusted by pools also. This is nasty, but I am pretty sure the infection I got that put me into preterm labor at 30 weeks was from the swimming pool where I took a pregnancy water class. NASTY!
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Speaking as a lifeguard for a community pool, its not easy being in my shoes either. I have to deal with screaming and sometimes disrespectful kids who wont follow the rules no matter how many times you blow your whistle. Parents who just drop their kids off and assume we'll watch them for the day. And guess who's the one cleaning the poop or vomit out of the pool? yup, thats me! Plus i get the pleasure of fishing out all the hair, leaves, bandaids and other gross body things out of our filters. I'm just thankful we shock the heck out of our pool with chlorine.
Ps. Great blog!
Just found your blog I love it, I am lucky enough to live in AZ and have my own pool but I feel for you community poolees out there. When my kids go for lessons I just try not to think too hard about it.
I remember many a time as a kid when we all had to get out of my parents' pool because one of my nephews decided needing to poop was not a valid reason for exiting the pool....
i can't believe you guys are sooo tame ... we lived in creston, bc and swam at the local public pool, not b/c we couldn't afford the country club, there wasn't one ... so to the point: the summer's were HOT and we swam every day (4 darling daughters, 1 son) ... and we learned ... NEVER EVER SWIM IN THE BABY POOL ... do you know how many times a summer they had to evacuate it b/c of ... not .. pee ... but poop!!! not *in-the-diaper-poop,* BUT *logs-in-the-water-poop* ... i preferred to stand in the big pool in t-shirt and shorts and hold the smallest kid than put them and me in the baby pool ... nuff said!!! love you, meanest mom -- i was too!!!!!
how about the lifeguards texting their friends while they sit up in the big white chair?
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