You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Community Pool.
With Spring in the air, I was thinking…
What else is in the air.
Pollen. Lawn mowers. Love. Short Skirts. Joggers, and I’m talking fat boy joggers, who shouldn’t be in a pair of Dolphin shorts, ever. I mean ever.
But also on my mind.
The pool. Cool liquid refreshment with stupid life guards and a radio station set to easy listening.
Got me to thinking about a story I wrote once that started a little like this…
It’s a 90 degree memorial day weekend brought out the sagging flesh like fermenting cheese brings out the mice.
It’s pool season and first glance tells me that many people forgot to pre tan or work out this spring.
Yikes. Sagging, jiggling, blinding white.
So much white. I was embarrassed for the entire Caucasian race.
So much white, I was like a snow blind Sherpa squinting into white void in desperate need of SPF.
This community has a tennis court, a pool and work out center.
It once cost approximately 85 dollars a month to be a member here.
85 dollars a month is a lot of money in tough economic times.
Few people joined, meaning the pool was relatively people free during the height of the summer.
You could swim a lap and not bump into another bag of flesh.
You could use the work out club and be assured that your machine was waiting for you.
You wanted a tennis court, just show up and start serving aces.
While that created ample opportunity for members, it also created a cash flow problem for the club which teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.
With less working capital, machines broke and remained broken. Pool decks cracked and stayed cracked. Tennis court nets sagged and stayed sagging.
To avoid being flushed down the drain, the club opened up membership to anyone in this community whose home owner association fees are in good standing.
What once cost $85 dollars suddenly was attainable for $45.
Suddenly the club went from a few members to a lot of members.
What was business class suddenly became coach.
This community has close to 2000 homes. If each home has 4 people that is 8,000 people. If only 50% of the home HOA dues are current, that allows for 4,000 people at any given time to recreate, salivate and stagnate.
From what I’ve seen, a lot of very white saggy people have paid their HOA dues.
It’s 7:30 at night and the pool is open. It’s wall to wall flesh. Finding a seat will be like finding a twinkie at Rosie O’donell’s house.
Kids are splashing and yelling and running. It’s chaotic like an open fire hydrant in Brooklyn.
Because it’s night many people are wearing shirts. Many people are drinking alcohol brought in coolers.
But you can tell, many people are grossly unprepared for bathing suit season.
It’s 7:30 pm and I can only imagine what it will be like tomorrow, 94 degrees, at high noon?
Will it look like a bunch of beached whales, sunburned and gelatin like, waddling around the pool deck.
There will be so much melting, sweating sun screen, the pool deck will be declared a disaster area by FEMA.
I watch the pool. The lights are on under the surface. The undulating water creates an interesting electrical spark across the pool.
I watch some teenage boys. They are loud and silly. They are fighting each other splashing people within a 10 foot radius. This never happened when the club was business class.
Smaller children are running around like wild Indians. They are sprinting. They are just aching to stub a toe on a cement crack. This never happened when the club was business class.
Where are the lifeguards? What are they watching? Blow those whistles people! Where’s the ubiquitous “no running” The lifeguards of past club house regimes were pool Nazi’s who didn’t let any indiscretion slip.
I stand there holding my towel, standing up, taking in this absurd scene.
It’s 7:30 at night. I don’t have anywhere to sit. I don’t want to get in a pool over run with teenage angst.
What will this lunacy look like in the heart of the day, the heat of a Memorial Day weekend I think to myself.
It will be fat and white and without club house decorum.
It’s going to be a long hot summer I think to myself.
Life’s crazy™