All dolled up and nowhere to go

Are you kidding me, Mother Nature? I'm actually sort of prepared to go to the pool alone and you can't even work hard enough to hit over 80 but tomorrow, tomorrow is gonna be above 90?

Do I need to sacrifice someone to make you like me again?

Ma'am, your son is peeing into the pool.

After taking the trash out, I decided it was warm enough to risk a walk to the pool, so I gathered my stuff, slathered on the sunscreen, and headed off. The walk was shorter than I thought it would be but I wound up with a rock in my shoe so that was probably the second sign that this trip was illfated.

I get to the tennis courts and I can see there are a few people there, one person is reading and the others look like a mom and two really young kids. Huh. Well, might as well get a little closer... One person in the pool but not bad. I figure I might as well go to the gate and really get a good look and duh, once I'm there I have to go in because who wants to be the person who takes one look at the pool and walks away?

Turns out there's one girl reading, one woman in the deep end, and two really young (like maybe teen-mom young) mothers with three kids, one of which is a baby. Enh, could be worse. So I go in and realize the kid brigade has pretty much sectioned off the chairs down by the shallow end, so I put my stuff at the nearest chair by the deep end. I wander over to the shallow end and get into the pool, being nice as can be and quickly get out of their way because the kids are plotting water balloon fights or something. The water's pretty cold and I'm thinking I made a mistake but I'll be damned if I'm getting out after less than a minute.

The lady in the deep end seems like she's going to be a regular whenever she can get book reading girl to accompany her to the pool, or so I gathered as I floated around the deep end until the little kids come running, literally running, by, shrieking about jumping in the pool.

Whoa, kidlets. There's no running at the pool. It's the law. You just don't do it.

The kids invade the deep end and it doesn't take long for me to realize that they've left all their stuff at the shallow end but are literally sitting on the ground right by my chair, thus keeping me from my stuff. There's not a ton of room for me to walk around the other side of the pool because an older gentleman has come by and, at the time he appeared this made perfect sense, he's camped out on the chair on the other far end of the deep end but there's not a lot of room between his chair (that he's in) and the pool. So... it's a good thing I have no intention of getting out of the pool, yeah?


Until Hunter (I want you to break out the thickest hick accent you can to say this kid's name in, k? Go over the top if you need to, but for the love of God, do not actually pronounce the r at the end of the name) announces he has to pee. There's a frantic race to get him out of the pool before anything can happen and about halfway to the bathroom he announces he doesn't need to go to the bathroom. Luckily the moms don't buy that and one takes him anyway, with the other sending kid #2 with 'em. I'm proud of them for not falling for that and things are uneventful for a bit until... Hunter announces he has to poop.

He gets out of the pool and I swear, takes like four steps and says "Nope, don't have to" and gets back in the pool. Maybe, I think, this will be the one time in recorded history that it really was a false alarm. I think this is when I finally got too hot and went underwater. When I came back up, I thought I smelled something funky but there were a lot of garbage trucks out so...

Yeah. No. The mom in the pool freaks out because kid crapped his pants. She gets the other mom to leave the baby by my stuff and go to shower him off. The shower, btw, is near the ladie's room and also the button you have to press to leave the pool area. I've scooted over to the shallow end because yeah, but I can't exactly leave since there's an unattended baby by my stuff and another kid running around (literally) the pool and a naked kid between me and the button to exit. So I stand there, awkwardly in the pool, praying that the chlorine is doing its job.

Minutes pass and I debate just trying to leave anyway but eventually the shower is over and I think "Well, clearly they're going to go home now." But no, Mom #1 throws the kid back into the pool. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This kid just took a shit in his pants and you're throwing him back in the pool?

Nope. I get out and try not to gag at the smell as I walk by to get my stuff, but because they've camped out by my chair I have to manage to get to it, grab it, and then take it back to the section that's not covered in them or their stuff.

Which happens to be incredibly close to the shower. For crying out loud...

So I kill my plan to dry off via the sun and wait until my feet are no longer soaked before hightailing it out of there. I stop in the parking lot by the tennis court to text Cass and as I'm standing there, trying to dry off a bit more, I hear the gentleman say, "Ma'am?" I look back, wondering if I left something only to see Hunter standing on the side of the shallow end, peeing into the pool.

Ma'am, your son is peeing into the pool.