Pool Snob

I am a self professed pool snob. I don’t mean the billiards game, but the swimming pool.

The reason I say this is because I had never had to experience the public pool scene until my 20’s. Every summer of my life, I enjoyed a privately owned pool without the added stress of the general public and their behavior.

When I was 12 my parents bought a new house with a giant swimming pool in the backyard. I don’t use the word “giant” loosely. My parents joked that the house came with an Olympic size pool (not really, but that's what my mom called it) complete with a slide and springy diving board. As a preteen, now equipped with her very own pool, I couldn’t have been happier. To make my existence even more significant, my bedroom included white French doors that led directly out to the pool. I realize at this point you may be thinking what an overindulged princess I really was, but I had never before led such a privileged existence. From that summer on through high school, my house was the scene for many pool parties. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted to do it. I was very thankful for my backyard paradise.

Before moving into the pool palace, my mom would drive us to the country club pool, where we were members, to swim. Though I thought of this pool as a “public pool,” it was hardly public. To swim in this pool, one must be a member of the country club, be immediate family of a country club member, or be one of only two allowed guests at time of a country club member. This pool was always clean and inappropriate behavior was quickly illiminated.

Yes, I was spoiled. Where some kids had to share their swimming experience with strangers, I never had to.

After leaving my aquatic privileged life behind to move to the big city, I realized that I had lived in my apartment building for almost three years and had never visited the apartment pool. Part of me was afraid of being in a bathing suit in public and the other part of me was afraid of what I might find lounging around the pool.

So on a sunny afternoon on the first day of June, I put on my one piece and ventured out to the apartment community pool. There couldn’t be that many people there; after all it was 1:30 on a Monday. As I walked toward the pool, wicker beach bag flung over my shoulder, I heard it. The sounds of men laughing, babies crying, and Sir Mix-a-Lot blaring from a stereo. I rounded the corner and saw close to 30 people splashing and lounging around the pool. I stopped at the gate completely frozen in fear. There was no turning back now. I was already here. So I stepped through the gate and started my search for a lounge chair. After noticing that all of them were taken, I pulled two empty chairs from around a disserted table. I picked a spot away from the table and set up shop.

After spreading my towel across the chairs, pulling my book that I brought to read out of my bag, and trying my best to make myself comfortable, I began to take in the sights. To my left were a group of girls about my age. They had on bikinis that could have been a little bigger, a stereo, and two or three young children. The girls looked like they had been tanning since mid February because of their perfectly tanned skin. I looked down at my own ghostly white legs and suddenly felt self conscience. While these girls tanned, their unattended children ran free in and around the pool. So much for the “all children must be supervised by an adult at the pool” rule.

Across the pool from me, was a large group of men in their mid to late 20’s. I counted 12 of them. They had taken most of the loungers to their side of the pool for what I can only guess was a drunken pool party. They laughed and carried on as if no one else was there. Their section of chairs was littered with beer cans. I could only imagine how long they had been at the pool because the amount of trash in their area. Some of them had jumped into the pool to play a rowdy game of volleyball. I heard one of the guys say that only two of them actually lived in the apartment complex. The rest were just extra friends. So much for the “only two guests per resident at the pool” rule.

I suddenly turned by gaze back to the group of mothers to my left when I saw a toddler, who I can only guess had been possessed by a demonic spirit begin to scream, stomping his feet. When his mother told him to quiet down, he angrily flung the cup his was holding hitting another women in the face. His mother jumped up from her lounger and took the toddler by the arm. Here we go, I thought assuming his mother was taking him to the bathroom to teach him a lesson. You can imagine my surprise when the mother took a chair from the table next to me, set the chair against the wall a foot away from me. She threw her son into the chair and told him to stay put. She then turned and walked back over to her lounger, flipped over on her stomach and proceeded to lay out while her son sat screaming next to me. I looked over at the red faced toddler sitting next to me. He looked back at me with tears streaming down his face, then turned his gaze back to his mother and began shrieking again. I looked over at mom and saw that she was ignoring him and no intention of coming back over to get him. I rolled my eyes and took my ipod out of my bag. I was so thankful that I had decided to pack it as I put the earphones in my ears. The sounds of Cage the Elephant partially drowned out the sound of the screaming demon child next to me.

Meanwhile, another toddler from the group had picked up the abandoned cup from demon child and started a rousing game of “fling the water.” At his mother’s encouragement, this toddler would lean over filling the cup with water and fling the cup so that the water would spray anyone within reach. I got to participate in this game once or twice, being the recipient of the spray of water. The demon child beside me jumped to his feet and began running in circles around the pool. I noticed this child did not have on floaties, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t a swimmer yet. I watched anxiously as he jumped around the pool, ready to jump in after him if he should fall in. His mother never noticed. Instead the group of “mothers” lit their cigarettes filling the entire pool area with a thick layer of smoke. So much for the “no smoking in the pool area” rule.

I then heard shouting from the frat party on the other side of the pool. I looked up to see that someone had pulled out a beer bong. The group of guys proceeded to drink from the beer bong, asking any female around to join them. A few tattooed girls joined in. I noticed they didn’t ask me to join their party. Oh well.

As the afternoon wore on, I was eventually joined by a woman about my age, in a bright orange string bikini, with what could only be described as “circus boobs.” Since there were no lounge chairs available, Circus boobs spread her towel out on the ground and prepared to lay out on the concrete. Suddenly, she was swarmed by the beer bongers like moths to a flame. I listened as these guys fell all over themselves offering her everything from free drinks to volleyball play and even one of their lounge chairs. Only the potential lounge chair caught her interest. She graciously excepted and within five whole sections was enjoying the comfort of her new chair. I looked at the middle aged, bikini clad, belly button bearing women across from me and shrugged. They too were laying out on the ground, but were not offered a lounge chair from the beer bongers.

Between the noise of the beer bongers, the unsupervised screaming children, the thick cloud of smoke looming over the pool, and the fact that the more beautiful people were offered companionship and comfortable seating, I had had my fill of the apartment pool. I told myself I would go back again. Just to see if my experience was a fluke or if that was the way it always was at the pool. I always knew that there would come a day when I wouldn’t have my very own pool in my beautiful backyard. I knew that one day I would have to grow up and except what I had. That afternoon, after my trip to the pool, I looked at my calendar and made plans to go home to visit and spend a week with my parents....and their pool.