I've cancelled my membership to the exclusive country club swimming pool place. I couldn't rely on the pool temperature to be cool enough - swimming in warm chlorine soup was doing me no good at all and no amount of fluffy towels and Molton Brown body lotion was going to make that better. So today I went swimming in my local leisure centre and it was lovely - big and light with a sprinkling of children (most being at school), a few up-and-downers putting in the lengths, parents with toddlers or babies in the little pool on the side and a big boy with the face of an angel who wanted to show me how he could throw his locker key to the bottom of the pool and then retrieve it. No two-for-one pamper ladies and gents exchanging confidences in the jacuzzi or reading Marie Claire and Bella in the loungers between massage and exfoliation.
Thinking about the whole pamper-package and what it is that draws people, I have decided that it's a baby thing - about being treated like one, I mean. You offer yourself up to hands that minister to the more hidden parts of your body, your skin is creamed and pummelled and afterwards you are swaddled in big white towels and dressing gowns, all relaxed and ready for sleep. The only thing missing is a bottle or dummy and favourite teddy. Nothing wrong with that - or, as Miss Jean Brodie might have said: for those that like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like. I'm sounding snooty, aren't I? Sour grapes because I couldn't hack it in the amniotic waters. I'd have been happy to carry on, all the difficulties because of M.E. notwithstanding, it was easy and convenient - expensive, but when you add it up not so very much more expensive than going regularly to the leisure centre, if one goes three times a week.
I'm glad to be back with the riff-raff though. Never quite comfortable with privilege, especially the pretend kind. It was as much as I could do to stop myself singing
I want to swim with common people,
I want to swim with common people - like you
On my way out I saw angel-face sitting by himself in the cafeteria eating a packet of crisps.
Bring on the revolution, Peeps.
5 comments:
I like the pampering, but can only take it on very rare occasions. I much prefer a daily diet of self reliance. Not much into being babied.
Well that's good then...still swimming and not spending so much :O)
Personally I detest the whole 'pampered' thing. I hate being mucked about with and oiled and....and...yuck! I don't mind the osteopath doing it quite so much but all the other stuff you can keep.
Who is Angel Face ? Have I missed something ? Oh.... sounds like something from a Jilly Cooper blockbuster:'.... Signs' eyes met Angel Face's azure peepers across the cutlery section of the Leisure Centre caff....'
Whoops (!) I'm writing stories again and we all know where that leads to. I'm off ;O)
P.S. only removed last post because it was this one with far too many typos. My typing is getting worse :O(
Zhoen, there is also something about the word pamper (meaning to treat with excessive indulgence) that is off-putting.
Cusp, lovely that you so easily put me at the centre of a romantic blockbuster but before you become too immersed: see earlier in post - big boy (about nine years old) diving to retrieve his locker key.
Oh well...my speed reading skills are shot :O)
Still like my version better ....
Chance would be a fine thing, Cusp, especially in the setting of a leisure centre cafeteria ... I'll keep you informed
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