Everything Matters

After weeks of exchanging sighs and acknowledgment of empathy with other club members, Beth accepted the sad realization that Nice Mommy and her Obnoxious Offspring were not guests. The possibility of getting through the stack of books that she had reserved for pool reading this year looked bleak.

The Obnoxious Offspring climbed over chairs, even when people they didn’t know were sitting in those seats. They jumped in and out of the pool with no regard for the person who might already be in their landing spot or on the stairs, and they assumed permission to use towels, toys, rafts, and sunscreen no matter who owned it. Food and drinks were not safe in their presence, nor were cell phones, books, laptops, glasses, purses, clothes, or members on walkers or in strollers. The Obnoxious Offspring ran, screamed, shoved, and cried.

They cried often and loud. They cried until snot covered their faces and their snot ended up in the pool, on someone else’s towel, or sometimes on another person’s body. They cried until Beth’s nerves rattled but she refused to wear earplugs like some of the others had started doing.

This one family created chaos in the pool area, the locker room, and the fitness center. Twice a day, they disrupted the parking area while Nice Mommy chased her Obnoxious Offspring around the lot before getting them into the club or the SUV.

Nice Mommy responded to each of the Obnoxious Offspring’s hellion antics with the same message. In a syrupy tone, with an understanding smile, she said, “We don’t do that.” In the rare event only one of her offspring was guilty, she used a name. Occasionally, she established the violation, “We don’t knock old ladies out of their chairs and spit on them.” For the most part, at least a hundred times a day, the generic version sufficed.

If the Obnoxious Offspring heard a word she said, they never let on.

But Beth heard her, as did her sighing, teeth gritting, lip biting, eye rolling partners in misery. She knew, as long as Nice Mommy and the monsters were around, they would never be able to swim laps in the morning, read a book in peace, carry on conversations as they had every year before. They would be lucky to think about anything other than controlling their anger.

When the oldest Obnoxious Offspring shoved an unsuspecting, unprepared, never-obnoxious child into the water, causing her to skin her back on the side of the pool and come up choking and frightened, Beth grabbed the sides of her chair to keep from jumping out of it and smacking the smirk off an obnoxious face.

“We don’t push,” Nice Mommy reminded her apparently deaf brat. She smiled at the traumatized child’s mother, and then turned to look at Beth. Still wearing her plastic smile, Nice Mommy shrugged, as though she couldn’t understand why the other child’s mother was upset.

Beth counted to ten in her head, tried to visualize herself in a hammock, alone on a deserted beach. Youngest Obnoxious Offspring charged into the space between Beth’s chair and the one next to it, caught her foot in the strap of a pool bag, tripped, and landed with her elbow in Beth’s stomach.

“We don’t run,” Nice mommy said.

Beth ignored the pain in her gut and the stars that flashed before her eyes. “Maybe you don’t run, but your children do,” she said to the delusional Nice Mommy. “Why do you ignore what they do?”

Nice Mommy’s smile did not falter. “I do not ignore my children.” The sugar in her tone thickened. “Maybe you should stay home when you’re grouchy. This pool doesn’t belong only to you.”

“Correction,” Beth said. “You don’t ignore your children. You excuse their behavior by repeatedly telling them they don’t do what they know you see them doing.”

Nice Mommy said she would pray for Grouchy Beth to mind her own business and called her obnoxious offspring to her side. “Mommy is going to the ladies’ room. Stay out of the water until I get back.”

Once Nice Mommy was out of hearing range, other members cheered Beth. “I’ve wanted to say that for days,” one of them said.

“She needs to open her eyes,” another added. “One of them is going to get hurt, or seriously hurt someone else.”

Beth appreciated the input but left her chair to mind Nice Mommy’s business once again. Oldest Obnoxious Offspring had knocked Youngest in the deep end and the child was struggling. Beth jumped in and pulled the child out.

Nice Mommy returned. With a smile, she snatched her crying Obnoxious Offspring from Beth and marched inside to complain about the grouchy woman.

“From all we’ve seen, Nice Mommy is always nice and she watches her children,” the manager explained to Beth. “You cannot be rude to another guest.”

“I just fished her youngest out of the deep end of the pool,” Beth said. “She watches them annoy everyone else. She watches them help themselves to our drinks and take toys from other children. She watched one of them throw my book in the water a few days ago.”

“No one else has complained,” the manager said. “Maybe you should be more tolerant.”

Beth returned to the pool area and shared the conversation with her friends, all of whom agreed. “I can’t complain because she is always nice to me,” one said. A few nodded, a few registered their complaints with management, and most did nothing.

Management posted new pool rules the following week – no personal items allowed in the pool area and children under the age of ten would be required to wear life jackets.

“My kids can swim,” one of the people who did nothing complained to Beth. “This is not fair and I am not joining next year.”

“She’s always nice,” Beth said. “Next year, the pool will belong to nice people.

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
Abraham Lincoln