Tonight, as I was carting my laundry into my apartment from the basement, I noticed an announcement on the billboard.
It has been there for months, of course, and I have read it before, but in all of my musings about taking leave of my country and moving to Africa for a year...this announcement seemed to sum it all up.
It was the Pool Rules.
I live in a condo that has a wonderful pool which I take much pleasure from each summer. I will miss the pool but think Lake Victoria might be a decent stand-in for awhile. Anyway, it had nothing to do with the pool, per se, it had to do with the rules.
So precisely laid out, so silly, that it reminded me that Americans seem to have lost their way and need specific guidance on things that would have never occurred to our forefathers.
Here are four of the twelve Pool Rules (no shit, will PDF and include a copy on this post soon):
1. "If you have a visible medical condition, such as a venereal disease or pink eye, please do not use the pool. Please seek medical treatment before subjecting your neighbors to anything contagious or potentially contagious."
2. "If you have any open lesions, sores, rashes, or skin ailments, please seek treatment before enjoying our pool at Arlington Commons. Rashes can be serious!"
3. "Please remember to shower before you enter the common area...it is a courtesy to your neighbors!"
4. "If you have any obvious discharge, please do not use the pool."
Again, I have seen this announcement about six dozen times before but I think tonight was the first time I read it.
Discharge? Pink eye, a rash...or, perhaps, a visible venereal disease or obvious discharge? Are you kidding me?
Wait a minute...I really AM still in the United States and these rules, by and large, are for an American audience. Holy shit...
("Hey, honey, is that there razor burn on your inner thigh or do you have herpes?" "Oh my God...whatever is that obvious discharge??!!" "What do you mean you haven't showered since this morning? You are climbing into a pool with a chlorine content so high that my new blonde highlights are turning green but don't you dare contaminate me with your unwashed skin cells!")
Then I got to thinking...who the fuck was in this pool before me that compelled someone to write these rules? Or, if that is not the case, who has WAY TOO MUCH time on their hands? Or, even worse, are these things really NECESSARY and need to be so spelled out??
These things scare me, really.
Just like the labels on the back of the frozen pizza box that remind you to take it out of the cardboard before sticking it in the microwave...or the label on my new hairdryer reminding me not to use it in the bathtub or while showering...
Do these people really exist out there? If so, where are they and can we have them isolated as soon as possible?
I know, I know...not very spiritual of me today but, honest to God, who the hell is tempted to don a bikini and parade an "obvious discharge" or "visible venereal disease"" in front of one's neighbors? Who, one morning when rushed on the way to work, decides to multi-task by drying their hair while still showering? Who, I ask?
Then, just a few minutes ago, I glance over at the TV and see our President grinning foolishly while he swaggers around his ranch with some known dictator and human rights abuser and think....
Ah-hah! There's the man who explained his black eye a few years ago as the fact that he got so riled up by watching the football game that he choked on a goddamn mini pretzel and fell off the couch and knocked himself unconscious thus resulting in a black eye (C'mon, George, you and I both know that Laura socked you...fess up) and then I think,
These rules, they are a good thing.
Because really, as my dear friend says, Americans are slowly becoming a race of "sheeples" or "sheep-peoples," blindly trusting and following as long as they don't have to think too much and the directions aren't too complicated or at least very clearly laid out...
(OK, OK, back to being spiritual...I promise...but that is one bit I won't miss ;)
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