Hot Tubing with the Locals 12/22/11
My gyms hot tub sits right in front of the swimming pool and in the winter my routine is to sit in the hot tub for 15 minutes, then go swimming in the swimming pool for twenty minutes, then get back into the hot tub for another ten minutes. I do this around three times a week. Today as I am working off my holiday calories sitting in the hot tub, several people get in and we all start talking. One of them was a trainer at the gym who is very buff and tattooed. I nicked named him “Bull Dog” for he has a shaved head, rippling muscles with piercings and tattoos’. He is a very nice guy and is well liked, but if you did not know him, well put it this way, if you ran into him in a dark alley, you would run screaming in the other direction.
Anyway, as I am sitting there talking to the others, he turned around and I noticed he had this huge gothic cross like tattoo on his back that went from his neck to his butt and across is massive shoulders. At each point of it, was inscribed an initial. So I worked up the nerve to ask him what the symbols on the tattoo meant. He said that each initial was someone he loved, his little girl, some relatives and his former fiancé, whom he said he just broke up with. He then mentioned that because of the break up he would have to get the tattoo changed. I then queerly said, “Or you could only date women that have her first initial so that way you won’t have to change your tattoo”. Thank God he laughed, or else I would look a pug dog right now.
Since I swim so much, I have given some of the regular swimmers little nick names. For instance there is this middle aged woman whom I call, “Showboat” I call her this because she likes to swim on her back, kick her feet up in the air, causing her to glide through the water, making her look like a steam boat with a paddle wheel behind her. Then there is the man who thinks he is Mark Spitz and Greg Louganis all wrapped up in one body, I call him, “Lou-spitz”. He likes to dive into the pool, (did I say its only 5 feet deep?), wearing his Thong Speedos’. It’s not that he has a bad body, it just that he is in his fifties and way passed the point of looking good in anything that shows his under regions. (Think two peanuts and a Vienna sausage wrapped in a thong).
Then there is the lady I call, “Ester Williams”. I swear she never wears the same bathing suit and bathing cap twice. She always comes running in and flies into the water doing flips and somersaults, like she is in some 40’s movie musical. (Did I mention the pool is only 5 feet deep?) Today she hit her head on the side of the pool and I could not help laughing. It was so Carol Burnett.
Then there is me. I am allergic to chlorine so I can never get my head underwater. Think severe nasal swelling with a case of hearing loss, and itching burning eyes if I get chlorine in any facial orifice. I have tried nose plugs, ear plugs and all kinds of goggle plugs but they are so uncomfortable, plus they always fall off. So I just gave up and swim above the water. Think dog paddle, and cross it with a frog swimming on top of the water and that’s me. Because of my allergy, I hate getting my head wet so I tend to avoid the more splashy swimmers. There is one lady that I refuse to share a lane with her for she swims like she is drowning. She flip flops around like a dead fish, her legs and arms hit the water so hard that she causes a tsunami. I call her “Splashy”. I have actually seen people begin to dive in to save her for they think she is drowning.
Then there is the 3 o’clock Nazi swim coach. She is great at what she does and the kids love her. But when its swim time you can hear her from across the parking lot, shouting swim orders to the kids. I guess it is the only way she can be heard under the water but I try to get out of there before she arrives. I started calling her the “Swim Nazi” after she made all her students stand on their hands with their legs sticking out of the water for as long as they could hold their breaths. It was quite fascinating to watch these kids perform this aquatic maneuver. I never could do it. “Nine Nine, you will stand on your hands and hold your breath until you pass out!” Egads!
Later on that same afternoon, I went to go shower in the communal men showers when this man came around the corner and started showering next to me. I did not think anything of it at first until I notice he was staring at me and my manhood. You know one of THOSE stares. I went “oh oh” in my head and quickly washed off the soap. As I was leaving, I caught him grabbing his nether regions as he point blank said to me. And I quote, “Are you Mexican?” Mexican?! Hu? I said no! The water was cold! I ran out of there, rejecting his advances and never looked back, wondering why he could not have asked me if I was African American. Oh well, just another day at the Gym that is not number two.
