Sunday, June 12, 2005

Vaseline and toilet seats don’t mix

I know how I am going to die. I am going to slip off a Vaseline-coated toilet seat, crack my head open and bleed to death.

I know this is how I am going to die because it’s already happened to me. Twice. Not the cracking my head open and bleeding to death part but the slipping off a Vaseline-coated toilet seat part.

There’s this woman who is always at the Vancouver Aquatic Centre. We call her "Vaseline Lady" because she coats herself in the stuff before she goes for a swim.

Her routine in the women's change room is fascinating to watch. First, she sets down a gigantic tub of Vaseline on the ledge in front of the mirror. Then she takes off all her clothes and scoops out baseball-sized gobs of Vaseline, which she smears on every inch of her body. (I overheard her telling someone she does this to protect her skin from the chlorine.)

Once she is coated in enough layers of grease to withstand a nuclear fallout, she puts on her swimsuit and heads out to the pool, leaving a trail of slime in her wake. I have twice slipped off toilet seats she sat on. I have cracked my hand against the wall after it skidded off the soap dispenser she touched. I have slid on the pool deck she walked on.

I’m not the only one who has grumbled to the lifeguards about Vaseline Lady. Apparently, so many people complained that the lifeguards banned her from using Vaseline. But it’s an impossible crime to police so she keeps bringing her contraband gunk to the pool.

The woman is a walking safety hazard; not to mention a walking lawsuit should someone (me) actually crack their head open and bleed to death. If her skin really is that sensitive to chlorine, why swim at all? But perhaps that’s too logical a question for someone so illogical.

[I’m not even going to get into the fact that I have also seen her eating sandwiches in the shower. Eating in the shower is weird enough but eating things in the shower that are going to get soggy is mind boggling.]

Anyway, since there seems to be nothing I can do, please use this post as "evidence" when they find my cold body on the bathroom floor at the Aquatic Centre.