The worst swimming session ever

Because of my current line of work I've been ill pretty much every week since October. It's not fun. Touching gross ipods and iPhones and then touching our own machines in store that other grotty kids or people lacking in good hygiene have been touching. I sanatize often, but nothing seems to prevent the amount of sickness i've experience. Because of the sicknesses I've not been swimming in a long long time.

I went this afternoon, making this the third time in seven months that i've been in a swimming pool.

Now the past couple of days at work have been horrific, there's a mid-term school holiday, and for some reason the Apple store is the place to be. We have been babysitting for the past four days. We usually babysit at the weekends anyway, but this week has been horrible. Having to deal with kids rudely shouting at us to ask for help in emailing their lame Photo Booth pictures to themselves, and having to shut down porn sites after kids put porn on the screen and run away. It's actually horrific.


Anyway, today I thought I would go swimming. I've been feeling a bit better, and no impending sickness feels like it's heading my way. The last time I spoke to the doctor I suggested to her that as well as continuing on my inhalers (oh yeah, she gave me inhalers because my lungs have had enough of being ill and I have terrible chest pain reoccuring) that I would start swimming again to strengthen my vital organs.

So I went. I got there, I paid... FULL price I might add, and full price is about 30 minutes of working at apple. Got changed and then noticed that the 'fun pool' was closed and every child, off school today was in the big pool. I also noticed the kids off school. What a rookie mistake nad oversight. I thought I would be going at a calm time. But no.

Immediately after sitting my stuff down near where a lady was already doing some slow, head out of the water, breast stroke lengths, she shouted 2/3rds of the way down the pool at me "Excuse Me." So when she got close, I was like 'Yes...?" to which she said 'I'm swimming here.' To which I said "well, i'm going to swim next to you."

She was most afronted, and I didn't mean to be cheeky, but two people doing lengths in an area is better than one because it is more intimidating for the kids.

She swam away, then stood at the other end of the pool eyeing me up waiting for me to move, then she moved to the other side to make some kind of point. Weird.

After about 14 lengths half the pool got shut off. So 30+ people were crammed into half a pool, with no order or discipline. There were kids jumping in the pool (which is an international no-no I'm sure) and a lot of general disrespect. The thing is, I don't mind kids, they're having fun. There was just too many people jammed in that side of the pool.

The lady that had shouted at me previously gave me an apology and explanation and a very long story, which kept cutting into swim time.

I tried to keep going, but eventually when the pool reached 45-50 people in it. I had to stop. I was scared of getting jumped on and ending up paralysed or worse ending up hurting a kid. I don't swim super fast, but I don't swim super slow either, and my concentration isn't on who's in my way, it's on my muscle movement. So I could end up really hurting someone, especially when I have my hard plastic paddles on.

I stopped 4 lengths from finishing my first Kilometre, some more adults started appearing and they were outraged, I finally asked if we could be allocated a separate lane, the lifeguard went to ask permission and then I finished my kilometre proving a point that it was dangerous. The lifeguard informed me that it was too busy to put another lane in and that the kids would just sit on it. Hmmmm.

I got out.

I am livid. I'm 40 lengths down and 30 minutes of apple time out of pocket. I'm not happy. I think that's what made me mad the most is that when I was a student I could pay £4.50 and get in swimming for the entire year for free.

If I was unemployed or on benefits of any kind I could also get the same deal. But because I work, because I am not lazy or churning out kids for cash from the government I have to pay for the entire operation of the pool even although my local taxes are paying for that anyway. It's disgusting. Sincerly Britain is one of the only countries that you can make more money by being on benefits than you can by working.

The 'From the Cradle to the Grave' theory was implemented in the 1940s. I think it's time we called it dead, we tried it, it worked, it's now failing, and move on to something better.

I totally understand that some people are completely worthy of benefits, but the people that are lazy, or the people that claim sick benefit when they're actually recovering Heroine addicts, those are the ones that bother me. And the ones that have kids just so they don't have to work, so they get money from the government and have their house paid for. Those are the ones that need to be stopped. Seriously. It just breeds misery and depression and then boredom and violence and crime. The country is a disaster. The NHS is kind of nice though.

I also think, and this is quite controversial, that if you were to remove child benefit from those that have kids to get such benefits, then the crime rate, in about 12 years would deplete greatly. It's like that study written about in Freakonomics. The crime rate in New York didn't drop because of policing, it dropped because abortion became legal. now i'm not encouraging abortion, but I just think that if people weren't getting paid to have kids they would take contraception seriously, and thus prevent rather than terminate, and therefore kids that would have been born into poverty, misery and sloth wouldn't be, and then boredom, and crime would also vanish.



Oh so the stats.


200m FC
200m BS
200m FC Legs
200m FC arms
100m BS legs
100m BS arms
Then i gave up. Sad.