The pool where I am a member hosts a youth swim team/club and uses some of the lanes during adult lap swim. Although I try to avoid those times because of the crowding and the noise, sometimes I don’t have a lot of choice. And I really don’t object to multiple user groups sharing the pool at the same time; exclusive use would just reduce availability, and the majority of the time, shared usage is not really a big deal.

But one evening I was getting ready to leave after I was done getting dressed, and walked back through the locker area to find a kid (10 years old as I later learned) pissing in the middle of the locker room floor. This isn’t actually a situation I was prepared for. I told him “that’s disgusting” and told him he needed to clean it up (at least to pour some water over it in the general direction of the floor drain). He was obviously embarrassed by having been caught doing something he knew he shouldn’t have been doing. He insisted he couldn’t do anything about it, and didn’t go for my suggestion that he find a bucket or something to fill with water. At that point I offered him the choice of either taking responsibility for it himself or we could talk to his coach about it. THAT really freaked him out, because then the coach, and ultimately his parents, would find out. (In hindsight, I figured that he didn’t find the suggestion about asking for a bucket to be much of a way to avoid further embarrassment because it would tip someone off anyway.) He then relented and said he’d go get his water bottle. Well, okay, not the most effective method (or at least it would take a lot of fills to do it), but a way for the kid potentially to do something about it without further embarrassment. I paused briefly at the pool exit before leaving to see if he really would get his bottle and go back, but he didn’t. I was ready to just forget about it and started back to my car when I thought about putting myself in the shoes (or more to the point, in the bare feet) of another swimmer using the locker room, and went back in to let the coach know. Instead of thanking me for bringing it to her attention, she started up on me for yelling at the kid. I readily admitted having raised my voice at one point, but pointed out to her that it was only when I suggested that I would talk to his coach–which was AFTER having raised my voice in exclaiming that it was disgusting–that the kid really freaked out. She agreed that what the kid did was “inappropriate” (I would say unacceptable, not merely inappropriate), but in the end, to my knowledge, she never sent the kid back to clean up after himself and to date has still not during any subsequent visits to the pool apologised for having blown up at me. I give her credit for all the time she spends teaching these kids, but she certainly seems to lack civility or good judgment. I’d even be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt for blowing up at me in the heat of the moment until she got a better understanding of what happened, but failing to make a gesture of reconciliation after calming down does not reflect well on her at all.

As for the kid, geeez, if he’s 10 years old, he should known better. Anyone should know better. I coach youth hockey and have coached kids at various times ranging in age from 4 to 13 and even the four year olds know that you don’t use the dressing room floor as a toilet. Sigh….

Geeez, if the kid was 10 years old, he should know better. I coach youth hockey and have coached kids at various times ranging in age from 4 to 13 and even the four year olds know that you don’t use the dressing room floor as a toilet.

whatthefuck.