Protocol

Sitting alone in the 30 person hottub this morning, I was thinking about rites of passage. I was twenty eight minutes into my forty two minute swim this morning, when I received a rap on the head. This large fleshy laughing man in a blue shirt decided to introduce himself as I approached the home end of the swimming lane. He said that I should pick a side so that he could share my lane. He said that he tried to get the guys attention in the lane next to me, but when he approached, he was off like a rocket. I managed to gasp, "O.K." and launched myself off in the opposite direction.

Later, sitting alone, cooling off in the hottub, I was wondering what goes through a person's mind just before they rap someone they don't know, on the head. What "rite" have they passed?

Soon there were three of us cooling off. One of the others asked me how it felt to have my head rapped so early in the morning. "Oh, you saw that, did you?" I said that it took me by surprise...and I didn't know what to think. "I thought that there was some sort of protocol to enter a shared lane", I queried. "Something like sitting on the edge of the pool and hanging ones legs in full view of the oncomer, so that they would know that someone was joining." They both agreed...including the man with the smooth voice.

If the man in the blue shirt would have passed the required passage, it may have been different...but as it was , he clearly didn't know me at all. If gaining entrance into a shared lane required rapping the slowest swimmer on the head, then he was knocking on the wrong door. During his moments of waiting, he clearly didn't observe the wake left behind my sleek form and failed to notice the "off like a rocket" man envying my graceful strokes.

BACK OFF, BLUE SHIRT MAN...NO TOUCHY!