Bizarro Day at the Pool

Yesterday evening I went swimming with S, and I swear it was Bizarro Day at the rec center pool. The pool is usually moderately busy but we don't have too much trouble finding a lane we can share to do our laps. Generally the lanes are occupied by at least semi-serious swimmers who are doing laps and tend to keep themselves moving. Last night the pool seemed to be about as busy as usual (not too bad) but by some bizarre circumstance, the lanes were riddled with...."amateur" swimmers.

I'm not criticizing their abilities; hey, I still barely put my face in the water if I can help it (seriously...if I were meant to do that, wouldn't you think I'd have gills?). But I do tend to keep moving (kickboard or back stroke) if I'm occupying a lane. Last night there were three women STANDING in the shallow end of one of the lanes talking (okay, in the half hour we were in the pool, the women each swam about two complete laps, but promptly returned to their standing and talking). Two men (sporting life-preservers) were occupying the deep end of a DIFFERENT lane. There's only three lanes, and the third was occupied by a semi-serious swimmer (we had no gripes about him).

Finally we were able to claim a lane and we started our first lap with our kickboards (which we do to warm up a little before trying something more challenging -- okay, and yes, we are able to talk more while using the kickboards). Before we completed our first lap, Creepy Guy enters our lane and starts some semi-serious laps, giving us the evil eye everytime he passes us. At this point we decide not to surrender our kickboards as neither of us really is interested in having an inadvertent collision with this guy.

By now, Life Preserver Boy has ditched the perserver and decided to try some free style in the shallow half of his lane. I've never seen anyone SPLASH more than he did. So now we're dodging Creepy Guy in our lane and trying to avoid the pseudo Snake River Falls (Cedar Point reference for those not in the midwest) sprays coming from the other lane.

After a while and way more laps trying to steer clear of Creepy Guy, we move into the lane occupied by the women, figuring we can use the other 90% of their lane. About two (almost full) laps in, we find two more "splashers" have entered the lanes - one in our lane and one in Creepy Guy's lane right next to us.

That's pretty much when we called it quits for the night.