Pool Etiquette

I fought an old lady today.

When we arrived at the pool, Shelly and I happily found one lane available. This never happens. We always have to wait at least a few minutes to get a lane. We split the lane and warmed up, then did our first 400 and stopped to rest. As we paused at the wall, a woman got into the pool, and lingered in the lane next to ours (which was being used by a swim teacher and some little kids). She asked Shelly, "are you guys swimming? I just wanted to get across and I don't want to get in your way." I took that to mean that she wanted to cross our lane into the one on the other side (which was populated by two slow lap swimmers). I said, "oh, go ahead." And felt relieved that she was going to share that lane and not ours.

She said "thanks" and moved into our lane. And stayed in our lane. And then just sat there in our lane, bobbing up and down about three yards from the wall.

Shelly and I looked at each other in dismay. We decided to try swimming around her, but she was all over the place. After Shelly and I nearly cracked heads trying to pass her, I stopped and told the woman that I hadn't understood that she wanted to use the lane we were in, and that it wasn't working, could she wait 15 minutes while we finished our set? She got angry immediately and told me that she wasn't aware that the lane was reserved and that she'd talk to management. I agreed that I'd like to talk to management too, and that Shelly and I were there first.

Ugh. If you know me, you know I hate confrontations of any kind, but if there is one thing I will fight about, it's my workout. I waited all day for this and you are not going to ruin it, lady!

I asked the woman if she could at least stay on one side of the lane, and she growled that that would be fine. For the remainder of our workout, the woman stayed at the wall on one side of our lane, bobbing up and down and feebly kicking her feet in place every once in a while.

I made sure my flip turns at that end of the pool were extra splashy.