Songdog.net

I recently signed up for swimming classes. I learned to swim as a child and can get around OK but I never really developed good breathing or form and I'm not as strong as I'd like to be. Plus it's a great way to work out.

So Tuesday night I was in the pool at the Y with a group of similarly abled swimmers. One fellow is physically strong and a regular swimmer, but his legs kick at the surface, splashing water thirty feet into the air. As he reaches the side of the pool where I've paused he comments on the water he's inadvertently been swallowing: "man, this'll clean you right out. There's lots of chlorine in here."

"Lots of people, too," I say.

"I was trying not to think about that," he says.

Then with a wet "puh!" he spits into the splash gutter along the edge of the water, thereby exorcising some of his chlorine demons. I notice that he does this whenever he stops to rest. And this is what I'm thinking about later when I accidentally swallow a huge gulp of pool water.