It's weird
How life is such a rush
to get from one point to the next
Yet people say
"Stop and smell the roses"
"Carpe diem"
But when?
Everyday of your life
It's do this
Do that
Move forward
Grow
Change
Expand
And then you reach that point
Where you realize
You don't know where
or how
or why
And you get stuck
And Life's still pushing you
But you're going no where
Just stuck in the mud
Wheels spinning
Trapped
With no where to go
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Weekends at the Pool
Sorry about the delay, ya'll. Been super busy and then the motherboard on my laptop fried, so this is the best I've got for now. And no, this isn't a true story.
When I was young, between the ages of seven and nine, the pool at the big hotel downtown was a second home on the weekends, whether I wanted to be there or not. Mum, a housekeeper there, couldn't find anyone reliable to watch me after the one day care I attended was closed down due to too many code violations, so to the pool I went for hours on end every Saturday and Sunday.
There were always plenty of guests there from all over the state, nation, and globe, so I usually just blended right in. No one but the pool attendants knew there was no adult supervising me and the mangers were never around on the weekends. I spent those hours making friends with kids I would never see again and practicing new strokes and holding my breath, which occasionally scared the attendants but they took it all in strides.
I never realized until many years later that I must have been an unspoken secret amongst the pool attendants. No one wanted to lose their job if management found out but they let mum do it weekend after weekend nevertheless. Maybe they thought I was cute. Maybe they didn't really care. I like to think that they were all just good people trying to help out their fellow employee.
One pool attendant was especially kind to me. She always had candy in her big black purse and used to say, "hey Sweetie, have a sweetie," when I was around. She liked to braid my unruly brown hair and tell me that someday I'd be an Olympic swimmer and she could brag about knowing me. I loved her like the sister I never had. During her last shift before leaving for college she gave me an entire bag of Tootsie Rolls and told me to remember her when I was famous and on boxes of Wheaties. I never made it onto any cereal box, but I also never forgot her.
The only real close call I remember was not long before my mum got a new job and I ended my weekends at the hotel. At some point the only people in the pool area were me and a hoard of unruly middle school kids at a birthday party. The parents of said kids had disappeared and the pool attendant was in a huff because kids under the age of 16 weren't supposed to be left alone and she was no one's babysitter (except mine, unofficially). She sent a kid out to get a parent and the adult who returned was in just as big a huff. When the parent pointed out that I wasn't being supervised, the attendant declared that she was my supervisor and it had been cleared with management already. It was a blatant lie said with such gusto that even I believed it for a moment. The adult narrowed her eyes and challenged, "oh really?" She later went to the supervisor on duty, thankfully one to stand behind her employees, and the supervisor also lied and said it was true. I'm not sure how it was all resolved, but the pool attendant continued to work there so somehow we were all saved.
I've got no way to end this story right now, so the end.
When I was young, between the ages of seven and nine, the pool at the big hotel downtown was a second home on the weekends, whether I wanted to be there or not. Mum, a housekeeper there, couldn't find anyone reliable to watch me after the one day care I attended was closed down due to too many code violations, so to the pool I went for hours on end every Saturday and Sunday.
There were always plenty of guests there from all over the state, nation, and globe, so I usually just blended right in. No one but the pool attendants knew there was no adult supervising me and the mangers were never around on the weekends. I spent those hours making friends with kids I would never see again and practicing new strokes and holding my breath, which occasionally scared the attendants but they took it all in strides.
I never realized until many years later that I must have been an unspoken secret amongst the pool attendants. No one wanted to lose their job if management found out but they let mum do it weekend after weekend nevertheless. Maybe they thought I was cute. Maybe they didn't really care. I like to think that they were all just good people trying to help out their fellow employee.
One pool attendant was especially kind to me. She always had candy in her big black purse and used to say, "hey Sweetie, have a sweetie," when I was around. She liked to braid my unruly brown hair and tell me that someday I'd be an Olympic swimmer and she could brag about knowing me. I loved her like the sister I never had. During her last shift before leaving for college she gave me an entire bag of Tootsie Rolls and told me to remember her when I was famous and on boxes of Wheaties. I never made it onto any cereal box, but I also never forgot her.
The only real close call I remember was not long before my mum got a new job and I ended my weekends at the hotel. At some point the only people in the pool area were me and a hoard of unruly middle school kids at a birthday party. The parents of said kids had disappeared and the pool attendant was in a huff because kids under the age of 16 weren't supposed to be left alone and she was no one's babysitter (except mine, unofficially). She sent a kid out to get a parent and the adult who returned was in just as big a huff. When the parent pointed out that I wasn't being supervised, the attendant declared that she was my supervisor and it had been cleared with management already. It was a blatant lie said with such gusto that even I believed it for a moment. The adult narrowed her eyes and challenged, "oh really?" She later went to the supervisor on duty, thankfully one to stand behind her employees, and the supervisor also lied and said it was true. I'm not sure how it was all resolved, but the pool attendant continued to work there so somehow we were all saved.
I've got no way to end this story right now, so the end.
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