So summer is over at my pool. Boo fucking hoo. I hate the place and wish it sprung a gigantic hole that allowed water demons to pour out of the earth and kill every person there.

Is it that bad? Yes.

Let’s begin with the fact that I hate pools because they’re full of people. And I hate about 90% of the people I meet. Also, pools smell like chlorine and they’re not supposed to. When the chlorine in a pool has been completely used up by fighting stuff like fecal matter, sweat, skin cells, nasty ass shit, a chemical reaction releases that smell.

I know this because one of my jobs from hell was working for a company that sold pool testing kits. My boss was this obese woman who looked like her face had been worked over with a manhole cover. I wore shorts to the office one day and she said, “If you wore those every day, I would never get any work done.” Leave it to me – the one time I’m sexually harassed at work and it comes from a mountain troll.

The old people at the pool are probably the worst. They act like the pool is their private bathtub and get irritated when anyone strays into the water that is a veritable septuagenarian broth comprised of old people sweat and Depends. But let’s not overlook the condition of their bodies. Imagine pizza dough packed into nylon swimsuits that were new in 1968. One of them complained about my kid splashing them and I said, “That happens when you are at a pool.”

There are many groups of people that I would like to see shot into the sun, but the ones who complain about shit like getting splashed at a pool – or hearing a curse word at a football game – are high on this list. Seriously? If shit like that offends you, go home and make love to a loaded shotgun. You are too delicate for this world and other people want to fucking enjoy themselves.

Soccer moms make up a decent proportion of our pool, and they all look miserable as fuck. Their children are playing in the baby pool that is about 110% urine. When they’re not sitting and remembering their days as college cheerleaders or something, the conversations are banal as shit. There is a lot of cattiness that goes on, and I approve of that.

There are other mothers who are way into marathons, triathlons, and that cross fit cult. Holy fuck are they annoying. First, none of them have decent sized boobs. Second, they all look like pieces of dried out human jerky. And for some reason, they don’t feel complete unless they are wearing visors. Is that a cross fit thing? Fuck them. They all need a sandwich and a couple thousand cocktails so they loosen up.

The divorcees are a thousand times more annoying, although the women are fun to look at. Lots of plastic surgery accompanied by the thousand yard stare of desperation. Oddly enough, there are plenty of tattoos that might have looked good 20 years ago; the ravages of time have not been kind. Watching this group of men and woman gather at the pool bar makes me happy that I’m married. Kind of.

Now let’s turn our attention to the owners of this cesspool (Get it? No? You’re dumb.) They have owned the pool since it was opened. They are the cheapest group of motherfuckers in the state. Beers at the bar are $5, the snack bar is three times smaller than it should be, the bathrooms smell like the latrines at the Battle of the Somme. The lifeguards are high school kids who wouldn’t notice if the pool was suddenly filled with killer whales and three headed sharks. They are looking to get laid, which I totally understand.

Don’t forget the kids. All of them are running around like rabid hyenas, smashing into people and orchestrating general mayhem. Two of them belong to me and get benched about twice per day by the lifeguards. One of them came back to me the other day bleeding from a cut on his shoulder. “What happened?” “I was running through the woods and a stick poked me.” Why was he in the woods? Stupid kids.

There’s nothing to do at a pool if you’re an adult. You can’t get drunk without taking out a second mortgage, and you may have to rescue your child from being dragged down into the murky depths by one of the Old Ones. The conversation would put a meth head to sleep and it’s hotter than the surface of the sun. I can’t read because one of my kids is about two years old and needs supervision. Fuck this shit. Next year I’m going to find a pond that’s not inhabited by humans.

I’ll see you bitches in the funny papers.

Good thing this week.
I was able to watch The Dirty Dozen, Kelly’s Heroes, and Patton over the three day weekend. I’m now looking for a Sherman tank on eBay.