The Spectacle Scrote

I went swimming with my Beloved last night.

Readers of m'blog will realise what an absolute terrible sacrifice this is for me, as I really hate swimming in a public pool.  In the Winter..At night.

The cold air does some rather strange things to my physiology and I'm always a bit apprehensive about catching something nasty from the specimens of humanity in the changing rooms or the jacuzzi. (I wonder if Émile Zola composed his letter in a bubbling bath?  maybe that's how it got its name)

A hint, for those of a less literary bent.

However, we go to the pool.

One other reason I hate going swimming here is that I'm very short sighted.  My vision without my varifocals is, to say the least, blurry.

I don't actually bounce of walls, or walk into door frames, but I have been known to mistake my Beloved for someone else, which has led to some rather strange situations in the jacuzzi, but I won't go into that, anyway she didn't press charges.

So we did our traditional 40 lengths, me with my slightly cumbersome breast stroke, my Beloved doing her usual impersonation of an unguided (but very slow) torpedo.  She prefers to swim on her back and therefore cannot easily see what's ahead of her, so she quite often wanders off into a different lane or bounces her pretty little head of the white ceramic tiles at the end of the lane.

For some strange reason we usually have a lane to ourselves (and quite often the adjoining lanes as well) as we progress back and forth, like two bedraggled aquatic mice in a maze.  She unable to see, and me being able to see, but not really seeing.  It's all so bloody boring.  I've made enquiries into a waterproof iPod, but I'm not happy with the minimal guarantees. (If anyone out there personally knows of a really good waterproof MP3 player//iPod case and waterproof earbuds, please let me know).  Mind you I can often work out lesson plans or new blog posts during my aquatic perambulations, so it's not all wasted time.  Bugger the exercise, the boredom will kill me first.

Eventually the water torture was over and we headed to the jacuzzi.

I loath this immersion into the frothing people-soup almost as much as I hate the swimming itself.  Imagining with my razor-sharp, microbiology-trained intellect, the contents of the bubbling vat eating away at my exposed dermis is not a pleasant thought.  I wonder how many kilos of suspended and debraded skin cells they clean out of the filters (I hope to God they actually clean the filters) (I even more fervently hope to Dawkins that they have filters) plus the exuded squamous oils and fats,  It doesn't bear thinking about, but I can't stop the thoughts.  They go round and round like two gay hamsters in an exercise wheel.

At last, my Beloved (at least I think it's my Beloved, and it had better be, because the blurred and fuzzy vision who has been sitting next to me in the jacuzzi just grabbed a certain sensitive portion of my anatomy to signal we should get out.  If it's that 200 kilo Samoan (of uncertain gender) again, I'm going to complain to the staff.)

We walk over to the clothing storage boxes to get our clothes and belongings, intending next to head for the showers, and I can assure you that I use Dettol-based soap gel to at least try and kill off the organisms I know have now coated my skin.

My glasses.

Where the f*ck are my glasses?

I always tuck them under my clothes bag and I couldn't find them.

We never take valuables into the pool.

Things NOT to take to a public pool

I always leave my wallet, keys, loose change and my watch at home before we come to this Water-Based Torture Palace, and my beloved does the same, retaining only her car keys, which she wraps in her knickers.  Only a demented madman would interfere with her knickers, so they're probably safe.

But where the f*ck were my glasses?

I had bought them at Boots (a reputable chemist and optician for those form outside the UK)  in Dundee on our last visit to Scotland.  They were varifocals, with a Titanium frame and they costs lots.  About £450 all-in (NZ$900), and I needed them.

I searched, with a progressive panic, my clothes bag, inside my towel and wrapped-up clothes.

Nothing.

SOME LITTLE SCROTE HAD NICKED THEM

I stood there in the centre of my blurred and fuzzy universe and cursed.

Not really a good attitude for teachers, but WTF.

One other reason I hated going to this f*cking pool was the kids.  They let the little bastards into the pool about an hour after we arrived, for what they termed "Teen Time", so as we were finishing, swarms of the feral gits were running all over the place.

I couldn't see the sense in anyone taking my specs.  They were made to my prescription for f*ck's sake.  They wouldn't do for anyone else.  It was just pure mindless, idiotic, f*cking stupid vandalism.

I couldn't see  the point to this act at all.

I couldn't SEE.

Excuse me, is this the Male showers?

I made my way stumblingly to the male showers.  Being extra careful in reading the word MALES on the wall.  I wondered what other bathers thought if they saw this bloke, dripping water, with his face about 6 inches from the wall.

Eventually I got showered and changed and met my Beloved outside.   I'm sure it was her, because the blurry image that kissed me didn't smell like the Samoan.

I told her what had happened, in clear and succinct terms.
"SOME LITTLE SCROTE HAS NICKED MY GLASSES"

She too was shocked. 
"That's £450!" she said.

Too much dosh

See!

My Beloved is nothing but sympathetic.  She was even sympathetic when I banged my toes on the kerb ( was wearing Jandals for ease of changing clothes).  I knew she was sympathetic; she didn't laugh.

Thank goodness she was driving.

The thought occurred to me that if I'd been there on my own, (A purely hypothetical situation. If my Beloved hadn't dragged me, sullen and resentful to this bloody place, I wouldn't be here) I couldn't have driven safely home.  If I'd tried, I would probably have ended up killing myself or another driver as I veered all over the road, trying to distinguish the sides of the traffic lanes.  I might even have driven onto the railway lines by mistake, or ended up in somebody's bedroom as I turned into their driveway, mistaking it for the main road.

Oops. What f*cking house?

After we got home, I found my spare pair of specs that I'd thoughtfully kept after I got my new ones, and headed for the drinks cabinet.

I really needed a restorative whisky.  A large restorative whisky.  Actually two, very large, restorative whiskies.

The Famous Restorative

My Beloved didn't object.

Of course she couldn't

It was all her bloody fault for dragging me to that f*cking place.

Well, her and the f*cking scrote, but I don't know who that was, so she'll have to take all the blame.

Yeah, right.

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