Noodling

I never bought into the notion that inanimate objects can try to do you harm. I was wrong.

I was in the swimming pool at Parkwood for our weekly water aerobics session last week and playfully riding a plastic noodle (floatie?) back and forth across the pool, when I suddenly found myself fighting the noodle and going under for the second time!

“Okay, noodle, whoever you were when you were alive, I’m not putting up with this any more! You will stop trying to drown me!”

I must have swallowed a quart of pool water...

trying to get the noodle out from between my knees. “Bad noodle!”, I said as I yanked on the 1-1/2 ounce nubby tube. It fought back. I pulled; it pulled the other way! By now I was out of breath and beginning to hyperventilate.

Our instructor came to my aid in the nick of time. However, I think she was a friend of the floating device because she immediately admonished me for panicking and began to instruct me how to stay afloat whilst struggling with said noodle. “You should always grab your knees like so” she said.

I resented the inference that I was in panic mode. I was simply trying to remove the floating menace away from my person so I could get control of my body which by now was thoroughly exhausted fighting off the vicious, aggressive plastic tube!

I finally regained my composure but will be more selective about which pool equipment I use. I’m not completely convinced that those cute little boogie boards are friendly to little old ladies. It could be a blonde thing. Before I turned grey I was a blonde. Maybe floating dumbbells are more my style.

Wait. That would be me…