Lap It Up

I was at the pool this week, swimming in the lap lane. During a pause between lengths, an older gentleman approached me from the top ledge of the pool. He was in his 70s, carrying a large duffel bag and wearing a full polyester warm-up suit. Keep in mind, the temperature outside was roughly equivalent to the equatorial temperature on Mercury and he's wearing long pants and a jacket.

"Can I get in this lane, too?" he asked me.

"Sure. I think I'm done anyway," I said.

Sharing a lane with other swimmers, especially elderly ones, is not something that interests me. So I slid out of the lap lane, and rested along the edge of the pool. I then watched as this impressive specimen prepared for his leisurely swim in the neighborhood spa.

First, he stripped off his jacket. He wasn't wearing a shirt underneath -- big surprise. His torso was overly tan and covered in coarse white hair. Then he took off his pants revealing a knee-length, skin-tight Speedo. Unsightly bulges of extra skin squeezed out from the edges of the tight spandex.

This guy looked serious about his swimming -- certainly a force to be reckoned with. Then he reached into his large duffel bag and pulled out a large pair of goggles.

"Interesting idea," I thought to myself as my eyes burned from the blinding concentration of chlorine in the pool. Maybe I should get a pair of those (the goggles, not the Speedo).

Next, he reached back into his bag and pulled out a latex swimming cap. Okay, he doesn't have much hair, but I guess he wants to protect what little he has left. Or maybe he wanted to protect his head from the blazing sun. Whatever the reason, it didn't seem too unusual. A bit effeminate, but nothing to dwell on.

Then came the nose clips. They were stored in their very own buoyant protective case. I haven't seen a pair of nose clips since I was six years old when a friend of mine used to wear them in the pool along with his bright-orange inflatable arm floaters. I didn't think adults were permitted to wear nose clips outside of organized synchronized swimming competitions. Never-the-less, he removed the clips from of their case, snorted a few times and snapped them on. Even with the clips on his nose, you could still see long straggly hairs protruding from his pinched-off nostrils.

But he wasn't finished. He went back into the bag and pulled out the next surprise. A big blue pair of flippers. Yes, flippers. He sat down on the chaise and slipped each flipper onto his foot. FWOP! FWOP! He stood up from the chair, waddled back to his bag and reached in again.

Already sporting a knee-length Speedo, goggles, a swim cap, nose clips and big blue flippers, he finally revealed the last piece of equipment. Webbed gloves. No, not mittens. Webbed gloves. They looked like batting gloves with large pieces of material spanning each digit. He tightened the straps of each glove, slapped his hands together a couple times and began to make large circles with his arms.

Now, fully equipped and stretched, this part-man-part-amphibian waddled his way to the edge of the pool and jumped in, much like a Navy Seal would from the skid of a helicopter hovering 30 meters above a rough sea. Safe from the threat of enemy fire, he then slowly began swimming laps.

Why on earth does a grown man need flippers and webbed gloves to swim laps in the neighborhood pool? The pool is probably only 15 meters in length -- not exactly Olympic-sized. Isn't this cheating? I can often take a few strokes and glide to the other end of the pool. But this guy looks like he's ready to traverse the English Channel. Why did he stop at the flippers and webbed gloves? Why not a kickboard and a snorkel? Perhaps a small inflatable dinghy with a gas-powered motor? At some point, you may as well just get out of the water and walk your laps on the pool deck.

The guy probably swam about 30 laps in 10 minutes and hopped out of the water. He took off the gloves and flippers. Then the goggles, nose-clip and swimming cap. Luckily, the Speedo stayed on. After a quick toweling off, he slipped the heavy polyester warm-up suit back on, grabbed his duffel bag and left.

As I prepared to resume my laps, I wondered if I had really just seen that. Or was it a hallucination brought on by the chlorine fumes? Either way, I was glad I got out of his lane.