Mom Peeve #8: Puking at the pool is not ok. Getting back into the pool after puking, is a crime punishable by banishment from all community pools forever!
Floating bandaids, hair, and unidentified objects are a MUST in every public pool. I mean, what do you expect when you get a random assortment of members of a community, take off most of their clothes, revealing more skin than you ever desired to see on many individuals, and throw them in a big bowel of water together?
The public pool is a fascinating beast. Everyone knows kids pee in the public pool. You like to live in denial and tell yourself the chlorine automatically zaps pee and annihilates it. Let's just keep believing that. Occasionally you see a kid with nachos on his face come barreling into the pool. Gross. Or you witness the sweatiest, hairiest dad of the day lunge into the pool, thus rinsing off and feeling quite refreshed, while you are left feeling quite the opposite. I confess I rarely rinse off before I get in the pool. Even though everyone in the universe knows you are supposed to take a "full shower" before you immerse your body into the community summer sanctuary, I think approximately 1% of pool goers actually abide by this unenforced rule.
So here's the thing, I get that the public pool is the water "melting pot" of the town. The public pool takes "community" to the max. However, there are some limits you must acknowledge as a US citizen and community pool participant. Seriously, your citizenship and pool membership should be revoked if you do not abide by certain unspoken rules.
I did not envision myself "peeving" this particular post, but today's public pool experience presented a necessity for just this post. Today, at approximately 12:45 pm, a very large woman, threw up a very large quantity of puke, covering a very large quantity of space-including a patch of the cement roughly 15 ft from the pool's edge, a flower bush, my friend's foot, and part of her daughter's foot. Sick. Sadly, I did not actually witness this public etiquette violation, as it was relayed to me by my friend, the "puked on" victim. Disgusting? Yes. Unfortunate? Yes. An accident? Yes. While being grossed out, I sympathized for the unfortunate Puker. However, my sympathy immediately vanished as the Public Puker waded herself right back into the pool! This I witnessed, first hand. In disbelief and confusion I stared at this woman hoping she would receive my message via ESP requesting her to evacuate. She did not get the message.
I felt violated. I felt like screaming, "VIOLATION! VIOLATION!" This is NOT OK public pool etiquette. If you puke in public, at the pool, on people please refrain from resuming any and all pool activities. If you feel this request to be unreasonable you can take it up with me via email or we can take it outside.
What a proper post on the proper etiquette of our lovely wading pool. Unfortunately I had to be the victim of the pungent puke by the lovely lady in the tankini. Today when I arrived at the pool, I went to the complete opposite end of where the incident had taken place. Never will I forget the heaving heavy :)
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