Now wait a minute. I know what you're thinking. "She race walks to the Rosemary Clooney songbook? What the hell!" But I'm here to tell you, there is no better song to race walk to than Mambo Italiano! It's got the perfect rhythm to swing your hips to as you speed walk - I am SO not kidding! Okay, admittedly, I look like a dork, but I'm not really trying to impress anyone at the gym, so who cares?
Okay, anyway, back to the pool. Most days I work out in the morning because it's a great way to wake up, it sets the tone for the day, plus how much energy you exert in the morning dictates how much food you can eat throughout the day and you know I'm all about the food.
This week, with the start of the college school year I've had to play around with my gym time to work around my school schedule as I prep to welcome the youth of Canada to their first year of post-secondary education. Those youth are paying a lot of money to learn how to cook and the very least I could be is prepared to welcome them to the class they will dread every day - I'm just saying.
So anyway, a few times this week I've had to do my workout late in the afternoon and of course there is a whole different group of people at the gym in the afternoon than in the morning. Personally, I prefer the group in the morning because I've already got their quirks figured out (you know, like who hogs the treadmill beyond their allotted 20-minutes, who doesn't wipe down the equipment after they've used it - that sort of thing), but this afternoon crowd, not so much.
One of the people that works out in the afternoon is an older lady (and by that I do not mean that she's a card-carrying member of CARP - but she should be in a few years!) who is decidedly much heavier than she should be. I'm guessing 275-lbs on her 5'5" frame. So good for her for getting herself to the gym every day and putting on a bathing suit and swimming laps.
But here's the thing. It's her bathing suit. Being that she's a very large lady, I'm sure finding a bathing suit must be pure hell and when you find one you like you latch on to it as though it were to give you life itself. I know of what I speak because I once had such a bathing suit - it was styling (Tommy Bahama), it was beautiful (a lovely shade of blue with creamy yellow hibiscus flowers) and it had a matching sarong that completed the outfit. My swimming companion's bathing suit is a tank-ini with thin spaghetti straps and no real support whatsoever for her, shall we say, enormous bossom!
Who am I to judge? I'm really just there to get my 75 laps in in 30-minutes, so I tend to stay focused on my lane and rhythmic breathing....in stroke, stroke, out, stroke, stroke, in, stroke, stroke, out, stroke, stroke. Yesterday while I was concentrating on my breathing and crawling I glanced over to my right (can't be helped, it's the side I breathe on) and what to my wondering eyes did I see? One ginormous BOOB popping out of the no-support-for-her spaghetti straps tank-ini! There it was, just floating along with its owner as she did the back stroke down the pool.
I know, I know, I have plenty of floatable parts of my own (can you say gluteus maximus?) so I really shouldn't be judging, but I can't help it! Oh, when she got to the other end of the pool she discretely tucked her mammoth mammary back into her bathing suit before doing another lap on her back. And I? I had already made tracks to the other end of the pool and had just done my turn around to head back to the far end - all the better to stay away from floating boobies. But our paths crossed again at the midway point of the pool and there it was again...POP, huge nipple and all, floating by as I took a breath! People, I'm telling you her boob was the size of her head! Just bobbing along in the water with every stroke she took.
"Focus, focus, focus!" I silently screamed to myself. But the sight of the detached boob floating in the pool is too much for my chlorine addled brain to shake and I begin to chuckle, which of course then screws up my rhythmic breathing, which then leads to sputtering and choking on the litres of water I'd just ingested. Which then leads to the pool attendant hollering at me from the check-in desk "ARE YOU ALRIGHT?"
Not wanting to embarrass my swimming companion by having the young stud come closer to inspect what was happening in the pool I quickly gathered my wits about me and hollered back that I was fine, just got my breathing out of sync as I quietly did the breast stroke back to my end of the pool.
