This past Sunday was a truly glorious day.  The sun was shining and the temps were in the mid 80’s.  What was the Jansma family going to do? Well unfortunately for Shirley she was once again victim to her gender and invited to a bridal shower at 2pm, so she wouldn’t be doing anything fun.  There was chatter about going out to Green Lake to get the Wave Runner out for the third time this summer, but Tod wanted to go to the MVP pool to do the obstacle course, which he already knew required him to pass the swimming test.  Not sure how he was cognizant of this, but he was.  While I enjoy the MVP pool at Burton, apparently a little too much according to Tod which will be revealed later, I am hesitant because it is much easier to sneak the kids in the pool at Crahen MVP. However, since I avoided adding them to my membership this summer I figured I could bite the bullet and pay for them this once.  Typically my game plan for sneaking them in is to have them pretend like they are with another family when we are entering the pool, this is somewhat hard to pull off when they are both clinging to my leg.  I confidently made my way to the pool gate and scanned my hand, the 16 year old attendant merely asked me how many towels I wanted and didn’t request payment for the two kids.  “Should I say one towel so I don’t blow this or do I ask for 3?”  I decided to ask for 3 because I didn’t want to come off as a dick by only getting a towel for myself.

As we made our way towards the obstacle course I felt like a king, there is something special about sneaking your kids into a private pool, especially when you are Dutch.  My feelings of elation were short lived in light of the impending swim test.  Aiden, although cognizant of the swim test attempted to get in line for the obstacle course, but was told he needed a green wrist band which required successful completion of the swim test.  I asked what the swim test consisted of and was told: 1. tread water for 15 seconds.  2.  Swimming the entire length of the pool, which was at lest 25 meters.  I should have asked if we could replace 2 with “not pooping or peeing in the pool” because my kids are actually really good about that.  When they tell me they have to go pee I initially look at them funny, saying with my expression “you’re in a pool why would you go through the effort of getting out of the pool to pee.”    Besides pulling down a wet swimsuit and pulling it back up is the worst and my kids typically drop it at least down to their knees when they pee, if not their ankles.  Side note, when I was in college there was a guy who was a bit slow on the uptake, he was in college mind you so probably at least 20 but probably closer to 30 due to his slow nature.  He would pull his pants and underwear all the way down to his ankles when taking a leak at the public urinals, nothing like having a dudes hairy ass be the first thing you see when you walk into a public restroom.

The good thing about the swimming test is it takes place only once an hour on the hour, the bad news is that it was only 1:20 and Tod had already asked me about taking the swimming test 8,000 times.  I decided to run him through an impromptu swimming test, certain he would fail at least one of the two legs, if not both.  I’m not one of those parents that is unrealistic about things and says,  ok buddy you can do it, why not keep my mouth shut and let him prove or disprove himself.  I timed him by going 1,000 1 all the way up to 1,000 15 but dropped the 1,000 part at about 9 when it looked like he wasn’t going to make it, after about 16 “seconds” he looked like Leonardo Dicaprio at the very end of Titanic.  Now for the hard part, despite a year and a half at the Harvard equivalent of swim schools, Gold Fish, I was quite certain there was no way he was making it the length of the pool, it would be like me traversing the Pacific Ocean with only my four appendages.  Sure enough, he looked like one of those horses trying to cross an extremely rapid river, with his head just barely above water, performing a very rudimentary doggy paddle.  He made it about seven yards before I had to lend assistance to keep him from drowning.  Well, there goes that dream,  it’s good though to learn at a young age you will never be good at anything, saves you the time and heartache of trying things you suck at.  Unfortunately, Tod was not cognizant of the fact that he wasn’t going to pass the swim test, in fact he was on course to fail it miserably, or in the alternative, he just wanted one of the attractive lifeguards to save him after making it an eighth of the required distance. (Another side note, when we were on our honey moon in Costa Rica we went on a zip line tour.  There was a guide who took us through the tour 100’s of feet in the air with runs that were 1,000’s of feet.  One of the gay men in the group kept intentionally getting stuck in the middle of the run so that the guide would have to go “save” him, not sure Aiden is that smart yet when it comes to hot lifeguards).  He continued to ask me if he could take the test and I continued to tell him no.  What didn’t make sense to me is the inflatable obstacle course ran almost the length of the pool and only required about 4 meters of actual swimming and the rest was climbing and sliding.  Why did they need to swim the length of the pool?

The second somewhat strange thing about the obstacle course was that adults had to take the swim test as well if they wanted to participate in the aquatic dumbed down version of Ninja Warrior, and get this, there were actually people willing to take the requisite test so they could get a shot at the course, sorry not worth it.  What I decided to do was dive into the pool, that was my way of getting back at them for their stupid swim test requirement.  Unfortunately a 14 year old female life guard caught me mid act and when I came up for air she was immediately on me like a cop sitting in a speed trap.  “Sir, you can’t dive hear it’s too shallow. IT’s NOT ALLOWED!”  I have mentioned this before, but being yelled at by a girl who is 25 years younger than you and has to rely on her parents  for all of her worldly needs is quite emasculating.  Would a male lifeguard have done this to me? Probably not.  In all honesty they wouldn’t have given a shit.  Besides, I’m not in a wheel chair so apparently it is deep enough.

Overall, swim test not withstanding, it was a fun day at the pool and I used the money I was planning on spending on the kids to get in the pool on strawberry shortcake ice cream bars for them, all right who am I kidding, they would have gotten those regardless.  I took the kids home and had to run into my office.  When I got back Shirley informed me that Aiden told her that I was “Noticing girls” at the pool.  Oh shit, how do you respond to something like that?  Deny, deny, deny! That makes you seem awfully guilty (which I was) doesn’t it?  Besides, that was one of the benefits of not having Shirley present, I didn’t have to be as discreet as I usually am scoping scantily clad hot chicks at the pool, but apparently I did.  My play was to say this “he’s 6 years old how would he know if I was noticing girls at the pool?”  I’m looking forward to the day when the two of us can be noticing girls at the pool at the same time, possibly even the same girls, that is probably my only shot at fatherly pride based upon his exploits athletically up to this point.  I’ll probably have to create my own black ops ogle test when the time comes so he isn’t as easily detectable as his creepy dad.