#oneaday Day 520: The Top 5 Things I Wish You’d Stop Doing In Swimming Pools

I went swimming today having rediscovered it with Andie last weekend. I used to go a lot after work (that long-forgotten concept soon to be reawakened) alternating swim days with gym days, and while I didn’t get “good” as such, I certainly found myself able to swim surprising lengths without too much difficulty — or indeed speed, but that’s beside the point.

Today I managed 1km, which equates to 40 lengths of the pool I was in. I’d got up to being able to do 100 lengths at one point and to be fair, I could have kept going today were it not for the fact I needed to get home and Get Shit Done.

So, in honour of my swimming achievements I’d like to present the Top 5 Things I Wish You’d Stop Doing In Swimming Pools.

Putting on deodorant before getting in the pool

Seriously, Lynx-clad chav boy, who do you think you are impressing by making yourself smell like a gypsy’s jockstrap before jumping in the pool? You’ll only stink of chlorine in approximately 5 minutes anyway, so you might as well not bother, because swimming through the cloud of “aromatic” chemicals emanating from your person as they rinse off your hairless body under the water is anything but pleasant.

Finding your kids splashing people in the face amusing

Yes, a kid learning to swim is probably very exciting for a parent, but when some 6-year old git splashes me in the face obviously deliberately and you sit there laughing at him, that’s giving him positive reinforcement and unspoken permission to do it again. I would very much like it if he didn’t do it again, thanks, because it went up my nose and made me cough, and it also made me hate him, and you.

Prancing around naked in the changing room

Yes, I am aware that you need to get naked in order to get changed to go swimming. But do you have to be naked for quite so long and towel-dry your testicles quite so enthusiastically? And if your friend is with you, don’t you find it a little weird to stand there talking to him with your cock hanging out? If you weren’t in a swimming pool changing room you wouldn’t do it, would you? If you were both in your bedroom or living room it would be a bit weird, wouldn’t it? Unless, of course, there’s some sort of homoerotic tension between the two of you, in which case you should hurry up and consummate your love elsewhere and stop inflicting sexual tension on the rest of the pool’s visitors.

Getting pissy with people in the slow lane

I swim slowly, as do numerous other people. We don’t have a “super-slow” lane to downgrade ourselves to. You, however, have a “medium” lane which you can upgrade yourself to. Please use it. I bet you walk on the left on Underground escalators, too.

Being there

Frankly, I like the pool better when it’s just me (and maybe one companion) there. Kindly bugger off out of my way and, preferably, the pool so that I can enjoy the time in the pool I have paid for. Sure, you may have paid for it too, but I am grumpier than you. Go and see your naked friends in the changing room.