Strange People at the Pool

Stereotypes abound at gyms and pools are no exception. There are the elite swimmers, the lane walkers, the floggers, the dog paddlers, the reachers. I am the slow flailer. I am ok with that.

Some people defy labeling. We have a guy who loves to dive into the deep end of the pool and then swim slowly underwater across the lanes, periodically rolling over to gaze up at those above him who are churning out the laps. He can hold his breahte for a long time. He should get a job diving for golf balls or oysters. His behavior is seriously creepy. The older lifeguards won't tolerate that kind of shit and he is just smart enough to know this, and so tends to stick to times when the lifeguard is bound to be a young teenager who lets the grownups fight it out amongst themselves.

Mr. Bottom Swimmer (Mr. BS) nearly took me out last night. It was a crowded evening with a big variety of swimmers, and people who didn't want to circle swim were waiting for lanes. Reindeer Mary and I shared a lane. I was headed down to the deep end when suddenly a blur of baggy shorts streaked through the water inches from my face. I was kind of like "WTF???!!" I then realized it was Mr. BS. He was now lazily trolling across the bottom of the pool, flipping over now and then to smile up at me. Shaken, I continued my swim and Mr. BS tooled on down to the shallow end where Reindeer Mary was standing, hands on hips, in disbelief.

I won't go into a lot of detail but suffice it to say that Mary let him know in no uncertain terms that his behavior was fairly unacceptable and attempted to educate him on the nuances of lap swim. He agreed to try circle swimming but just couldn't grasp the concept. Say it with me. Cirrrrrrrrclllllle. Round and round. Swim round in ciiiiiirrrrrrrcccclllle.

Stay on top of the water? Huh? Water is for diving! He asserted that his family paid a lot of money for him to swim at this place, as if this somehow made it acceptable for him to have his own set of rules.

Because the rest of us get to swim for free???