Hey! I said I wasn’t a strong swimmer.
When I was a kid I asked my mom why she didn’t want to get her hair wet. She dyed (bleached?) her hair blonde, and she said that the chlorine would turn her hair green.
Let me say first that I agree with this in general BUT unpleasant demanding young women do grow up to be demanding, whiney bitchy older women who COUNT on you to respect your elders.
At least this was my evaluation when, standing in line at the movie theater, two old biddies crab-walked up to the front of the line and CUT, to the astonishment of everyone standing there.
The Y I used to go to for water aerobics had the water aerobics class at a time when the pool wasn’t available for lap swimming.
That seems entirely reasonable to me.
Look, these old ladies aren’t (usually) being obnoxious as a hobby. Exercise is very rough after a certain age (the benefits of water have been explained above), these women aged during a time when you really weren’t dressed unless you had your hair nicely done, and a lot of them are on fixed incomes. Christmas, they have few enough sources of decent exercise as it is - you’re going to drive them into stopping this one because you don’t think they have reasonable expectations of retaining dryness? How very kind!
Admittedly, this babe apparently went a little far in crabbing three times, but your responses were pretty nasty IMHO - just in case you were wondering, yes I’m sure she was aware that she was in a pool, and “whatever” is about the rudest most dismissive thing I’ve ever heard - it sets my teeth on edge every time I hear it. With one word you’ve just told the person that you have no interest in hearing what they have to say because it’s meaningless and you refuse to listen to it. (Obviously, I’m not talking about the word when used in the context of “Pepsi or Coke?” “Whatever.”)
For Pete’s sake, is it that difficult to show a little consideration when it’s been requested of you? I’m not saying you need to constrain every movement, but can’t you at least try, and respond by saying something like “I’ll do the best I can, but we ARE in a pool, and I may not be able to help it.”
“Escafandrista” is Spanish for “diver”.
My mother never got her head wet-but that was because she has a fear of going underwater. When she’d take us to the pool, she never went in water deeper than mid-thigh, and she’d mostly just sit on the side of the pool and dangle her legs. If you splashed her though, it’s not like she’d give a shit. Just don’t make her put her head anywhere near the water, or she’ll freak.
I can understand doing some limited exercise, but in that case, stay in the shallow end, or away from other swimmers. The local pool had that problem-the middle-aged biddies who came dressed to the nines but for their bathing suits who’d hang on the edge of the pool and get pissed at all the kids screaming and splashing around them. WTF?
I see that you weren’t able to bring yourself to actually read my OP before you lept to judgment.
Not only is the pool multi-use, but there were numerous others splashing even more, AND right next to the standing-in-water-with-dry-hair people. Swim classes of small children splash a lot – as I know, since I’ve sucked down their splashes many a time. That’s a lot more painful than getting my hairdo wet, but it’s what you expect when you’re in a pool full of water.
No, I wasn’t going to be respectful toward someone who wasn’t being respectful of me. She didn’t ask anything; she demanded.
And despite explanations about wanting to keep hairdos dry, it comes down to the fact that they knew what the situation was when they got in the water for the class – they’re surrounded by splashing kids and splashing lap swimmers. If not being splashed is important to them, then they needed to have found some pool that accomodates that. Not expect everyone else to adjust their own use of the pool so that their hairdo stays dry.
And our Y pool is not such a pool. There’s a pool rule – posted before you can enter the pool deck – that requires full showers. It’s not much enforced (obviously), and the rest of us pay the price of that by getting to swim in murky water fouled by everything that a shower should have washed off the other swimmers. It’s rather gross, actually, but the rest of us don’t say anything, because that would be rather rude to the ladies that didn’t want their hairdo wet. And we know the situation before we get into the pool.
But, hey, you go on with your judgmental self. Whatever.
I DID read your entire post. For whatever reason, the woman spoke to you, not to the kids. And yes, I’m asking if it’s so much to ask to extend a little extra to people who are old and probably not very well off. What a terrible, demanding person I am!
If we were in the Pit, I would return this as it merits. As we are not, I will remain civil. In the face of that kind of deliberate rudeness, this is not easy. Just choose your general word for a woman who is deliberately nasty on any occasion (I’m sure you’ve heard such words addressed to you a lot!), and I think you’ll get the general idea…