Pool Politics

I spend a helluva lot of time at the pool these days. It's free with the gym membership so I've got no excuse not to really. Forty lengths yesterday (the pool closed early, but I got time in before the toddlers came and yellowed up the water) and 160 today to make up for it, leaving me aching in strange places; the back of my neck, the sole of my left foot, my wrists.

Also absolutely starving. Not in a normal way, but in a way where I can feel some part of my digestive system tugging on my poor stomach shouting (in a Scottish accent) "We need more power!" but as usual, I've only had time to throw down a bowl of cereal or possibly something once resembling sushi (I loooove my sushi).

So I was swimming away today, counting down the lengths until I was finished for the day (not all that reassuring when you're stuck in the nineties, let me tell you) when three assholes drop into my lane.

You know the type, you've seen them in the street. The type of family that has a nice-looking, indulgent mum, and ignorant husband and a teenage son who's going the same way as his dad. The fast-and-furious lane is free to the highest bidder and yet they choose my lane (who I'm sharing with a nice lady in her forties) to start splashing about and zooming from one end to the other, blinding and dismembering all who dare to get in their way.

Assholes.

Mum is letting Dad and Son do whatever the hell they want, including crashing into Nice Lady. I stop swimming and give them The Evils, which isn't so effective when the receiving party is wearing goggles - you gotta have that eye contact or it's just one-sided and sad.

In any case, me and Nice Lady shuffle along to the fast-and-furious lane (what a larf) and eventually it's just me and the dad of the family battling it out.

I cannot swim in the lanes without starting a little fight with someone. It's totally possible that I'm the real asshole. Probable, even. Yesterday it was a superfit granny who hadn't taken her tights off before getting into the pool. Today it was Father Hole. 130 lengths in and I was still faster than the guy. He left the pool for the flumes a few minutes later, disgraced by an overweight 17-year-old with orange hair.

I came to one conclusion in the next seventy lengths.

Nicole Smith, Fat, Fast and Furious.