The middle schoolers refuse to shower before getting into the pool. My only theory is that they think, in the time it takes them to walk from the showers in the locker rooms to the pool, they will certainly freeze into human Popsicles. Because what GOOD reason could they possibly have for not showering?

After three whole days of makeup-slathered, hair-gel-anointed mini humans soaking themselves in our precious pool… the water is now starting to look… milky. It’s difficult to see the beautiful blue tiles along the bottom. In the shallow end, where you can actually kinda make out the bottom of the pool, it’s quite obvious that the floor is strewn with debris of all kinds—elastic hair bands, unnameable black specs, broken and torn pieces of this or that middle schooler possession. During a swim lesson, a student pulled his hand out of the water and, to his horror, found his hand entwined in a massive, sprawling chunk of human hair.

Our little automated pool vaccum, nicknamed “Wall-E”, that cleans the floor has been in the repair shop for weeks.

Every afternoon like reliable old clockwork, the swim team kids show up for practice to find their training area littered and soiled. On a normal day, they don’t want to practice. But today, they were gnashing at the bit to get out of it in any way possible. No one wanted to go jump in the swamp water out there.

The kids plead with the swim coach to let them skip practice during middle school swim week from here on out. I agree on their behalf. The coach says no and promptly orders their little behinds in the pool.

Me, to a female lifeguard: “Hey… what if a guy came in here and he had an English accent and he was 6'5” and —"

Lifrguard: “I’d teach HIM swim lessons…” 😏