CONTENT WARNING: Gross (Feces)

I was a lifeguard at the local pool in high school. Something that happens more often than anyone wants to think about is fouling — someone pooing or vomiting in the pool. When this happened, we sent everyone in the affected pool to go shower with soap and water, we scooped out the poo, and then the pool remained closed for an hour to allow the chlorine to clean it.

One time this happened, and then one of the dads came back out on deck with his toddler, a little girl around two years old. They tried to go back into the pool that was fouled (despite signs indicating it was closed). 

Me: “Excuse me, sir. That pool is currently closed.”

Man: “Why is it closed? My daughter wants to swim in it.”

Me: “Sir, you were just sent out of that pool due to a fouling. It’s closed for the next hour.”

Man: “Why is it closed?”

Me: “Sir, someone pooed in the pool. It’s closed.”

Man: “Can’t we swim in it anyway?”

Me: “No, sir. There isn’t even currently a lifeguard assigned to this pool.”

Man: “Well, can’t you watch it? I don’t see what the problem is.”

Me: “Sir, no, I can’t. The pool is closed. Please, use one of the other pools.”

Man: “We came here for this one!”

Me: “Sir, there’s poo in this pool. You cannot use it. It is closed. There are no lifeguards on this pool. No lifeguard wants to guard a pool with poo in it because we’d have to go in if there was an emergency. You cannot swim in this pool.”

Eventually, he got the idea. But seriously, who wants their toddler to go in a pool that someone just pooed in?

Related:
Please Do Not Put The “Poo” In “Pool”

One of my exercise routines is doing “Walk-A-Laps” at my local community center pool. More specifically, I have developed a routine of sets of laps for moving forward, backward, and sideways, all without actually swimming for resistance exercise.

Over the past few months, I’ve been going two or three times a week for thirty-plus minutes. Normally, the Walk-A-Lap designation is for the area not marked as a lap, but I have seen other swimmers using lap lanes for this kind of activity. I have shared lap lanes as said lanes are less shallow and I get a better workout in them. I’m perfectly happy with sharing lanes with other swimmers and don’t try to horn in on lanes if there are two swimmers in them. Most other pool-goers are gracious in sharing, as am I.

Not this one lady.

She is swimming solitary in the lap lane that I usually use. I think nothing of it and jump in, giving her a chance to see me to know that the lane will now be shared.

Lady: “Excuse me. This lap is for swimming. The Walk-a-Lap is over there.”

Me: “I usually use this lane for [swim walking].”

Lady: “You can’t be here if you’re not swimming laps.”

Me: “I’ve done this several times and haven’t had a complaint, until now.”

Lady: “I just don’t see why you would be here if you’re not going to swim laps.”

Me: “I get a better workout in this lane than I would in shallower water. I’m more than happy to share and make sure to stay out of your way.”

Lady: “You should be over there if you’re not going to swim laps.” 

Me: “Tell you what. I’ll get out of this lane as a one-time exception. But next time, we share.”

Lady: “…”

Me: “Is that an acceptable compromise?”

She nodded. I exited and salvaged some of my routine in the shallower area until I saw her leave the lane, at which point I took back my spot.

Later, another swimmer asked me if we could share the lane, to which I cheerfully agreed. I also got comments of bewilderment from fellow Walk-A-Lap swimmers and supportive conversations from kindred aqua pedestrians. 

In the end, I got a satisfying workout, made some allies, and asserted myself without resorting to any negative negotiation tactics. And I’m looking forward to swimming again in a couple of days!

This story was relayed to me by my coworker and submitted with her permission. She is teaching swim lessons to beginner swimmers, specifically young kids. One little girl in her class has been struggling with rolling onto her back to breathe and then rolling back in to keep swimming. Today, she finally did it by herself! Her teacher and the other teachers and deck staff burst into cheers. The girl, however, burst into tears.

Teacher: “What’s wrong, [Child]?”

Child: “My mom died!”

Teacher: “Oh, I’m sorry. Did this just happen recently?”

Child: “Nooooooooo.”

Teacher: “Well, I’m sure your mom is watching and is super proud of you.”

The girl’s mom passed a couple of years back, but kids sure do pick the most random times to bring up death.

I have had students hop into the pool and cheerfully tell me that their pets died. Kids. They keep things interesting.

I ended up visiting the recreation center swimming pool on a pretty bad day. It was raining on and off, and it was kind of windy, but the pools were heated and the opportunity to do some laps while the pool was empty could not be ignored. It is worth noting that the pool tends to have high school students run their desks, one of the few jobs they can find and easily get.

On this day, the desk was run by one such student, and she was in tears when I walked in.

She had been cornered by an angry member who was yelling at her about the weather. She was screaming about how the [Review Site] pictures showed the property sunny and bright, not giving the employee time to get a word in as she chained insults, demands, and delusions together in a long and uninterrupted string.

I ended up stepping between them, which shocked the woman and caused her to stop yelling.

Me: *To the employee* “Hi! I’d like to get into the basketball court, please.”

Woman: “Excuse me?! I was—”

Me: *To the woman* “Shh!”

The woman looked shocked.

Me: *To the employee* “Can you please check if anyone is using it?”

Employee: “Yeah, yeah, I can check on that for you.”

Me: *Whispering* “Run away.”

The employee nodded at me and disappeared. She apparently went straight to the back (admittedly quite a distance) because the person who returned was a very unhappy adult.

Woman: “Finally! This boy rudely—”

Functional Adult: “OUT! Get out!”

Woman: “Excuse me?!”

Functional Adult: “If you don’t get the f*** out of my lobby, both of us are going to be leaving in f****** handcuffs, and you will not set foot in another f****** rec center again, you colossal f****** c***!”

The woman was stunned into silence, but the employee pulled his badge off and threw it on the floor along with his clipboard.

Functional Adult: “You’re going outside one way or another!”

The woman scurried away, hopped into a van, and drove off.

Functional Adult: “YOU!”

Me: “Me?”

Functional Adult: “I’m going to need you to write a witness statement for [Employer].”

Me: “Do you want me to leave out the part where you called her a ‘f****** c***’ and tried to throw hands?”

Functional Adult: “Write it in a way that I can keep my job if you’d be so kind.”

Me: “Of course.”

Functional Adult: “I need to tend to my Employee. Apparently, this had been ongoing for several minutes before you came in.”

Me: “Where were you?”

Functional Adult: “Machine room — couldn’t hear a d*** thing.”

This story is part of our Highest-Voted-Stories-Of-2024-(second half!) roundup!

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CONTENT WARNING: Gross (Urine/Feces)

You always get that one patron who makes your job less enjoyable. When I was a lifeguard at a pool, it was this mom.

She had four kids, and all of them took swimming lessons. Every time they came to the pool, they would almost always leave bits of trash and food in the patio area. The two oldest were pretty well-behaved, but the two youngest caused problems. They were not good at following directions. The few times [Mom] bothered to watch her kids’ swimming lessons, she would oh-so-helpfully yell at them to follow directions.

One time, I was at the check-in desk, and [Mom] and the youngest son were in the patio area. I must mention that the youngest son was around four, or at least an age where he should have been fully potty-trained. I noticed that the son was crying and saying something to [Mom], who immediately grabbed a bag and led her son to the bathroom. As they did, I saw something fall out of the son’s swim trunks. Yep, you guessed it. I scrambled to get cleaning stuff.

When [Mom] and son returned, I was still cleaning. There were a few women sitting nearby, and they told [Mom] what had happened. [Mom] just shrugged and did not offer to help me clean or even apologize. Once I was done cleaning, I went to hose off the area just for good measure. I had to move some of [Mom] and her kid’s stuff.

Me: “Sorry, I’m just going to move some of this real quick to hose off the deck.”

Mom: “Oh, it’s just water.”

Again, she did not lift one finger to help me. Not to mention that the “water” heading her way might have some traces of cleaning product and other particles in it!

I later told my supervisor what had happened. She promised she would talk to [Mom] about it. She made good on her word, and she told me [Mom] would apologize to me the next time she saw me.

A few days later, I was working the check-in desk again. The four kids were eating by themselves in the patio area while [Mom] was who knows where. As I was watching them, the youngest son stood with a leg out, and liquid came out of the leg of his trunks. As I was staring in disbelief, he grabbed some crackers, dropped them in the puddle, and moved as if to smash the crackers with his hands. As he was about to, he noticed me watching and grinned at me!

Me: “Do not touch that!”

I rushed to grab cleaning supplies once again. I told the kids to move somewhere else while I cleaned. I finished the job and returned to the check-in desk. One of the other lifeguards was inside, too, and I warned him.

Me: “You know the mom with the four kids? The youngest son doesn’t know to run to the bathroom when he needs to go, so just keep an eye on him.”

The lifeguard agreed but then suddenly looked behind me. I had been standing with my back to the door that led outside to the pool. Who should be standing in the doorway but [Mom] with her youngest son in tow? I swear, Steven Spielberg couldn’t have scripted it better.

Mom: “Were you talking about me?”

Whelp, no time to lie now.

Me: “Yeah.”

Mom: “You know, I came here to apologize about the other day because [Supervisor] talked to me, but I don’t think I will.”

She proceeded to launch into a full-blown rant about basically how it wasn’t her fault. Her poor son started crying as the rant became longer and louder. I decided to pick my battles and just kept my mouth shut. I let her blow off steam. The one sentence that stood out to me was:

Mom: “Kids pee all the time!”

When she ran out of steam, I just kissed her a** and apologized. We eventually got to a compromise where she agreed to help clean up after her kids. The whole time I saw her for the rest of that summer, I think I only saw her pick up a single gummy candy one of her kids dropped.

Luckily, that summer was the last time I saw [Mom] and her kids at the pool. I did see them one time the next year. They were sitting in a lobby. It was a hot day, and one of her kids was wearing a Harry Potter robe. As I was trying not to stare in disbelief at how this kid was allowed outside wearing that heavy thing, the mom got up and said to her kids:

Mom: “All right, let’s go, you idjits.”

My only hope is that those kids can get far away from their mom when they’re old enough.