Clipboard Boy

"How's everybody doing today?!  Now, ladies, let's move our arms and legs," he screams into his famous mouthpiece while strutting around the pool deck.  I'd like to kill him!  He is instructing the fat ladies' aquasize class while some of us still try to swim lengths, jammed into two lanes from six.  Do they listen?  Absolutely not.  All they do is chat and float around with their belts on.  With apologies to those in other pools who actually work in the water, for these slugs it's not an exercise class, it's a social event.

They'd be better off to go away and have a coffee.  And don't get me started on the shower caps!  But back to Clipboard Boy.  For some reason, I am one of those shallow people who judges people on first impressions.  I either like them, or I don't.  With Ken, it was an instant "Oh Gawd".  On he shuffles to the pool deck a full half hour before the class starts.

Chomping at the bit to collapse four swim lanes, it's all he can do to restrain himself until the prescribed 15 minutes ahead.  But just to screw up one lane, he puts in the fat ladies' stairs, effectively closing one lane to swimmers.  "It's a health and safety regulation," he solemnly intones when I ask why so early?  "But we can't use that lane," I used to fruitlessly add to deaf ears.  These women get into that lane a half hour before their class starts and dog paddle around blocking it completely.  Why they are not told to wait 'til their aquasize class starts is beyond me?!  "Can you imagine if I got into that class and started swimming laps through it?  Or if I wandered onto the basketball court and walked around while a game was underway?!" I once asked the manager.  "Oh well, you couldn't do that."  So why can they eff up our swim lanes?  Same logic, but it escaped her completely.

But back to Clipboard Boy.  There he is, with his famous shoes, shorts and officious clipboard, checking off names.  Gawd help you if you haven't registered 24 hours ahead!  (Clipboard actually instigated that rule so he would have some reason to wave his clipboard and pen around.)  But never mind, these women just push past him and lumber on down the stairs.  If you ever watched 'Kids in the Hall', Clipboard Boy is exactly like that nerd with the plastic pen holder in his shirt pocket who ran around yelling, "My pen, my pen!" if anyone ever walked off with one.

A year or so ago, B decided to try the class.  Here's what happened:  "That's my wife over there, swimming in that lane."  "That's your wife!" shrieked one 250-pounder.  "Everyone hates her!  Doubling down she went on, "How can you stand to live with her?!"  "Why don't you go over and have a chat with her," advised B.  "I'm sure she would be happy to straighten you out about the rules."  Commenting on the fact that she had had both knees replaced, he added:  "So what you're saying is because you are so overweight, you have cost Alberta health $75,000 or $100,000, right?"  She hasn't spoken to him since.

I endure this three mornings a week.  I really need to get there earlier.