Don't go in to the water
The next Katinka Hosszú
I’m sitting alone by the side of a swimming pool, bone dry except for the pair of urine drenched swimming trunks that I’m currently sporting. I’m watching a group of Hungarian ladies teach their babies to swim. I feel like a raging weirdo. I look like a raging weirdo! How did I get here? Well it began a few days ago…
We’re at home. Zsuzsa is on the phone whilst simultaneously changing Mila’s nappy. How can she do two things at once I hear at least half of you cry? Well, I’ve no idea. Black magic? But anyway, she’s trying to book swimming lessons for Mila, but nobody appears to be answering. Zsuzsa sighs.
“Honey.” she says. “Can you watch Mila?”
BEEP!
“I’m desperate for a number two.” she adds.
Her face goes whiter than a Scotsman’s torso on the first day of a beach holiday.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“The answering machine! I think I’ve just told the swimming instructor that I’m desperate for a number two!”
“Ha!”
“What are we going to do!? I can’t face her now!”
“Why, because she’ll know that you’re one of those people who sometimes needs a number two?”
“No! Because she’ll think I’m one of those people who rings people up to tell them that they need a number two!”
It’s a few days later. We arrive at the swimming pool. Zsuzsa has begged me to be the one who takes Mila in to the pool, just so that she doesn’t have to face the lady who knows what she gets up to when she’s all alone. After much protestation I agree, when Zsuzsa reassures me that most of the class will be men and it’ll be in English.
I enter the swimming pool area. It’s my turn to resemble a Scotman’s torso. There’s not a Y chromosome in sight. I mean some of the babies might be boys, but let’s be honest, who knows? They all look like Ross Kemp at this age. Not ideal, but I can get through this. The instructor approaches me. She speaks to me in Hungarian at one hundred miles per hour.
“Uh…Beszél Angolul? (Uh…Do you speak English?) I respond.
“Nem.” (No)
“Oh.” (Oh)
All eyes in the room then turn and look at me. Like a pack of wolves they can sense weakness. I take a deep breath, pull myself together and find a changing table. I change Mila in to her swimming nappy, pick her up and put her on my knee. We watch together as the ladies in the pool begin singing Hungarian nursery rhymes to their babies. That’s right! Hungarian nursery rhymes! It’s official. I am in hell.
I whisper in Mila’s ear. “This is horrific.”
My little baby looks up at me and smiles. My heart melts and I feel a warm sensation. It’s baby piss. My shorts are drenched in baby piss.
Out of the blue and unexpectedly a swimming costume clad Zsuzsa appears.
“Honey! It’s okay Honey. I’ll going to do this.”
Before I can say a word she grabs Mila and they both join the group of Hungarian women? Actually what's the collective for a group of Hungarian women? A goulash maybe?
And so we’re now back at the beginning. Back with me looking like a raging weirdo, alone and naked except for my urine drenched shorts. I spot my escape route. A sauna. With my hands covering my baby piss trunks I make my way to the sauna and plonk myself down in a dark corner. Forty five minutes later, when the coast in clear, I remerge. I’m hotter than the sun. I’ve never liked swimming lessons.