Down
time. Poolside with the girls.
A group of “somebody’s
Mommas” on deck soaking up the sun.
The air infused with Coppertone and a hint of pool chlorine mixed with the perfect amount of breeze.
Suns feels warm
on the eyelids when pausing long enough to take stock of where you are … and
where you aren’t.
Spring
break had come and gone. Summer had yet to arrive.
Few people
were poolside on this day except for a few vacationing families with Midwestern
accents. Grandma and grandpa with Baby
and parents in tow. Dad lapping the
pool. Over and over again he goes back
and forth. Each lap getting closer to me
and the girls. The pool is immense, empty like a vacant parking lot. Why is he
getting closer and closer to us? Then it
hits me like something from an old episode of the Seinfeld Show…
This guy is a “close swimmer”.
Ignoring social norms and invisible lines defining personal space, this guy is lapping right up close and personal. As engineering would have it, the placement of the posterior on the cedar poolside chaise lounge is exactly 1 and a half feet from the surface of pool. Thus a bobbing head or lapping Midwestern daddy has an eyeful when breast stroking toward our nether regions.
Reaching into
the rolling igloo ice chest I pulled up a blender filled with the frozen
concoction of the day. The more we drank the less we noticed the close swimmer. The less we noticed the closer the swimmer
got. When we got to the bottom of the
blender he and his Midwestern family had left us alone at the pool.
Lesson of
the day…sometimes you can drink your problems, or a close swimmer away.
