Changing Rooms For The Changing Times

I’ve been teaching in our local swimming pool for about twenty-five years now. I’ve been blessed/cursed with youthful looks. Many children and parents gasp when they hear I am over forty years old.

The cursed part comes with parents and other adults sometimes not taking me seriously, until they hear my age, and sometimes after hearing my qualifications. They often ask for a second opinion from another teacher, who is heading towards their pension, but has been teaching swimming for not even five years.

Currently, our pool is being remodelled, with a large part being demolished and rebuilt. Only two pools are available, with four big group-changing rooms and four smaller one-person-changing rooms. The big rooms are: father and sons (and adult men), father and daughter, mother and son, and mother and daughter (and adult women). This remodelling has been going on for a year already, with these changing rooms for all.

Lessons have ended, and it’s crowded with children heading to the changing rooms to go home, and new students are coming in. At the same time, two women enter the hallway as well (there’s a special adult class). Only one does the talking, the other remains silent the entire time. They seem pension age, but I’m terrible at guessing ages myself. Grey hair, lots of wrinkles.

Woman: “And here’s the changing rooms for the kids… And here are the changing rooms for… ugh, they are taken! How rude! In my time, teachers were a lot stricter! Well, now we’re forced to undress in the hallway!”

A child has finished changing and leaves the single changing room. The woman spots this, grabs her clothes, but she’s slow, and another child has already taken the single changing room. The child never saw the woman eyeing that changing room; I don’t blame her one bit.

Woman: “How rude! Really! If I had been a teacher, I would’ve said something about it!”

She goes on for about another minute about how rude the children are and that the single rooms should be adults only. I’ve had enough, hearing her badmouth the students who have done nothing wrong.

Me: “The changing rooms are for everyone.”

Woman: “Yes, for adults!”

Me: “For adults and children. Anyone can use them, and they are doing nothing wrong.”

Woman: “In my time, teachers were a lot stricter!”

Me: “They are doing nothing wrong. You are most welcome in the bigger changing rooms.”

Woman: “But I don’t want to! They are so crowded and I don’t like being there!”

Me: “And so do some of the children! Not everyone likes the big rooms.”

Woman: “They should have more available!”

Me: “They are still being built! This is just how things are at this moment; they can’t build it any faster.”

Woman: “Well, in my time, teachers were a lot stricter!”

Me: “Yes, and nowadays, we treat children equal to adults!”

Woman: “What does a wench—” *’wicht’; a young girl* “—like you know about proper respect?!”

Me: “This ‘wench’ is over forty years old, and I will not treat my students as if they are less than an adult.”

Woman: “I need my privacy!”

She is still undressing in the hallway to the changing rooms! She clearly wore her bathing suit under her clothes, so no scandalous skin could be seen during this encounter.

Me: “So do they!”

I walked away. I heard her wail about ‘teachers in her day’ and filing a complaint. I went to the reception and informed them about in the possible ‘incoming complaint’. They were looking forward to it.

And we are all looking forward to more single-changing rooms!