mrs. blogoway

Everyone is cutting back during this economic downturn so I cancelled our gym membership a few months ago. I didn’t have to do it, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time. I wasn’t crazy about our fitness facility and the pool was always over-crowded with tons of screaming kids and the plastic decking smelled like… how should I say… plastic.

I found a church owned health club closer to our house that offers a yearly membership for $100. It’s only a hundred bucks a year for an almost brand new facility with cardio deck, basketball court, walking track, weight room and computer lab. The only problem is that there isn’t a pool. Living in Texas, it’s practically a necessity and I’ve become spoiled by having access to one for the past fifteen years.

I was off work today and with the temperature in the 90′s, I hatched a plan to get poolside. I called a friend who lives in an upscale apartment building (complete with gorgeous pool) and asked if I could use her pool. She said that she had to work all day but that it was fine if I wanted to go by myself. I packed my beach bag with my pastel striped beach towel, carafe of iced water, newest paperback novel and sunscreen. I already knew the access code to get in the front entrance to the apartments so I entered the code and pulled my car through the automatic gate. I pulled into a nearby parking space, got out and approached the pool. A beautiful, dark iron fence complimented the patio area like a strand of black Tahitian pearls on the neck of an unapproachable woman. The pool was deserted and as I neared the iron gate, the security key pad became visible. I tried the code that worked on the gated entrance to no avail so I slunk back to my car and called my friend at work. She said that she had never used the pool?! and had no idea what the code was. I was too embarrassed to ask her to call the office and ask for it and she never offered. She told me to just wait until someone else approached the pool and go in the gate when they did. I sat in my car another ten minutes as the temperature crept near 100 degrees in my car and I sweated all my makeup off. Fearing a loitering charge, I started up my car and slowly drove away.