changing lanes...

YOU may recall that last week I appraised you on the nuances of toilet etiquette.
This week, our topic for discussion is conduct at a public pool and if you know anything about one, the two topics are not entirely unrelated.

I've been regularly attending an indoor heated pool in an undisclosed location in our fair city, and even after executing the ritual dozens of times, I still can't quite work out what the rules are.

Take the men's change room for example. Encountering others, is it right to acknowledge their presence with a slight nod of the head and polite hello, or simply pretend the half dozen hairy arses and floppy cocks stepping in and out of K-mart underwear are simply not there. Hey, it worked for the Catholic Church.

Sigh. So much to know.

It always demands a level of cunning when choosing a lane.

Being only a moderately competent swimmer, it is quite the wrong thing to do to jump in the 'fast lane' where ridiculously fine chiselled people make a mockery of the average swimmer with their smooth, methodical and efficient technique.

Better to choose a lane more suitable to your ability - somewhere between the silver bullets of the fast lane and the hapless, floundering nuff nuffs of the beginners lane will do just fine.

Boy, I've seen some beauties.

As I've already intimated, I hardly cut the water like a knife through butter with my unorthodox approach but neither do I feel great cause for embarrassment.

I never realised there were so many ways to swim incorrectly.

The woman with the aversion to getting her face wet who swims with her upper body almost completely above the water line; the man with the painfully clunky technique who rolls an arm over once every ten minutes (you can actually induce deep sleep if you stare without blinking); the portly middle aged woman who drifts aimlessly across lanes, ignorant, oblivious.... so many degrees of wrongness.

The strangest experience I ever had was the night I encountered the human washing machine.

Imagine an epileptic fit then add water.

This bloke was thrashing his limbs about with such enthusiasm I didn't know whether to call for a lifeguard or toss in my smalls in with a cupful of washing powder.
I had to do something and I'm glad I did. My underwear have never been softer.

Hygeine must always be a consideration wherever large numbers of people and their spandex covered genitals come together, so to speak.

By some stroke of good luck I have yet to have the misfortune of drifting into a sudden current of warm water suspiciously near a nervous looking and crimson faced chap, looking towards the roofbeams whilst whistling the guilty pissers tune but neither has my behaviour been entirely innocent.

The truth is, when I go swimming, I get an attack of the sneezes. BIG TIME.

It usually happens after I've completed a lap and, of course, where the greatest numbers of my fellow bathers are congregated.

I try to control the impulse but, I have discovered, trying to muffle a sneeze in a highly cacophanous indoor pool is like farting into an amplified buscuit tin.
Not subtle.

My nasal ejaculations are generally more sound than "substance" but evidently still enough to draw daggers from others.

"What? this is the leprosy lane, isn't it?''

Maybe it was something I said, but lately, even on the busiest nights, I can always get a lane all to myself.