Poop in the Pool

As you know, I have recently joined a gym.  As you also know, it is far too expensive to actually use the gym, due to the fact that I have small children that I am not allowed to balance on the handlebars of my exercise bicycle, and so am required to pay money for their care.  I had been to the gym exactly twice.  Once, when I was not allowed in due to my boots, and once for my fitness consultation.  Now I have been three times, because we decided to take the family swimming.

If I don’t want to pay for expensive gym childcare, but I still want to use my membership, the obvious solution is to do things at the gym that my children can do also, especially since it is free.  My kids love to swim, so we bundled up one Saturday morning and braved the icy winds and snowy streets on our way to a tropical diversion.

There are three water features at the gym.  The first is a big old adult lap pool, and it was full of big old adults swimming back and forth, from one end of the pool to the other.  Very boring.  The second feature is the kids’ pool, which contains water that is much warmer than the lap pool (hopefully not due to unexpected fluids) and tons of children and their parents.  Finally, over in the corner, is the hot tub, which has a no kids allowed policy.  Sadly, there is also a big sign that prohibits parents from “supervising their children from the jacuzzi.”  There goes my brilliant plan.

The kids’ pool was where it was at, and we even saw one of Ruby’s friends from school there, so in we went, splashing around and having a great time.  Unfortunately, it did not last more than ten or twenty minutes.  Before we knew it we heard whistling and shouting and everyone seemed to be exiting the pool.  “Clear the pool!” I heard from the staff, so we climbed out with everyone else.  Someone passing by mentioned that there was “contamination” in the pool and it had to be cleaned.  I wasn’t sure what they meant by contamination, until I saw it float by.

I’m not entirely sure how one fully cleans poop out of a pool.  I suppose there are so many chemicals in there that they could just scoop it out and be done with it, although if it were my pool, I would drain all the water and scrub the living, well, you know, out of it.  That didn’t seem possible though, so I would guess they just threw in some extra chemicals, but I couldn’t say for sure.  What I could say for sure is that we were not going back into that pool, so we showered repeatedly and headed for home.

So far it’s going great at the gym.  I expect to be at my goal weight in no time, thanks to all that running I did after I saw the contamination and my sudden loss of appetite.