Herman Melville Is My Swim Buddy

"There she blows!--there she blows!! A hump like a snow hill! It is ______"

Pop quiz!

1) Does the preceding line end with:

a- Travis

b- Moby Dick

c-something more clever than either I or Herman Melville could come up with

2) Was this sentence uttered by:

a- The 110 lb lifeguard at my gym.

b- Captain Ahab

c- Both

Whew! That was a doozy of a quiz. As you may be able to gather from the questions I went swimming for my workout today. Included in this post is an artists caricature of me doing so. Swimming at my gym is an interesting proposition. Yes, swimming is the low impact workout of choice for the girthfull. The problem is my gym's pool is situated behind very large, very translucent windows right next to the front counter where every person checks in. If you work out at my gym you pass those windows. Be that as it may I swam, and in so doing felt like I belonged at Sea World. I kept an eye on the lifeguard because I thought at any moment he would don a wetsuit and attempt to get me to leap through hoops for mackerel.

Swimming is exhausting. I swam and swam and swam, eventually my strokes went from a semblance of good form to inept slapping at the water. Stick a harpoon in me; I am done. When you are tired after swimming you sit in the hot tub, right? Not today Moby! Just as I was about to climb out of the pool a couple decided to climb into the hot tub and grow somewhat amorous. The little devil on my shoulder told me to climb my fat butt into that hot tub and stare at the couple like a creeper (see accompanying picture of creepy guy) until they grew uncomfortable and left me in peace.

The angel on my shoulder told me to go sit in the sauna and leave the couple alone. Good storytelling dictates that I do the former, while in reality I did the latter. Oh well.

The sauna reminds me of the old Indian sweat lodge except with a lot less hallucinogens. You sit and you sweat, and as we all know the only thing more enjoyable the a mobile sweaty fat guy is a stationary one. After sweating it with some oldies for a while I took one last dive into the pool. Tired of feeling awkward I decided to turn the table on my fellow man.

"SCREEEEEEEE!!!" (direct quote) I screeched in best whale tone while breaching the water and entering back in with a thunderous clap. My best whale impersonation was pretty good. "SCREEEEEEE!!!!" I bellowed once more with yet another breech from the 4 ft. deep pool. Before I hit the water I noticed that the lifeguard and the other pool denizens were changing their looks of shock to that of laughter. I'm glad people still have a sense of humor. With a few more breeches and accompanying noises, I was spent and leaned against the wall of the pool pleased with my performance. The one guy in the pool who didn't think it was funny promptly pulled himself out of the pool and did literally 75 push-ups on the pool deck. While he took a shower I slashed his tires. (Only part of the story that is not true)