Pool Fun

Tonight at the pool, there was a woman who looked like Robert Redford and talked like Jane Fonda. It was fascinating. While this provided me with a few minutes of entertainment during my usual pool exercises, I realized that a trip to the pool is no longer what it used to be. I'm afraid an era has come to an end.

Over the past few years, this pool at my mom's condo has hosted a miriad of colorful characters that never failed to entertain and disturb me. There was one rather tight-knit group, comprised of elderly, super tan, pot-bellied, skantily clad future skin cancer victims who lazied around at the pool for hours on end. I'm only assuming that they went home when the pool closed, though I can't be sure.

There was one fellow that was clearly the leader of this pack. The others followed him around like he was the cool kid and they were his possie attempting to benefit from his coolness. Unfortunately, he wasn't cool. I'm not sure I ever saw this man wearing a shirt. His pot belly looked as though he was pregnant with sextuplets and his limp man boobs were in desperate need of some support. In spite of all this, or perhaps because of it, his favorite topic of conversation was his latest sexual excapade with some hoochie down the street. His possie hung on every word of every story he told, attempting to live vicariously through him and bring some excitement into their dreary, 18 hours a day at the pool, existence. He was often liquered up (when I say often, I mean always) which brought a distinctive slurriness to his relentless babble. As a result of his grotesque conversation and affinity for curse words, he earned himself the nickname Pottymouth.

Pottymouth had one follower that was especially attentive and clearly aspired to be just like Pottymouth himself. Much to his pleasure, I'm sure, he had the pot belly to match. He just needed to work on the drunkeness. We called him Pottymouth Wannabe. Pottymouth Wannabe had a girlfriend with a pot belly that put the men to shame. Nevertheless, she insisted on wearing a bikini every single day with no cover up in sight. We named her Pottymouth Wannabe's girlfriend. Together, these three provided hours of entertainment and caused me to have to dive into the water to hide my giggles on more than one occasion.

All this to say I'm rather upset as I haven't seen one of these special people at the pool this year. Either they all died of skin cancer over the winter (highly likely) or they moved away. In any case, though they were generally disturbing, I kind of miss them. The pool just isn't the same without their off-color conversations and definite lack of appropriate clothing.

So now the pool is merely a gathering of kids and relatively normal adults with their non-obscene conversations and modest swimwear. Yes, every so often a Robert Redford lady will come along to amuse me for a short time, but they will never be able compare with the legend that is Pottymouth and his possie.