Thursday, March 15, 2007
The Smell of Eastern Europe
This morning, I went to the gym for a swim. I haven't been to the gym since before Courtney was born and I really needed a workout. (Oh yeah, had a child last week. Cute little thing. Check out The Wife's blog for more details and pics. I'll probably write something about it later. Like in 10-12 years.)
Somehow, I managed to lose about 3 pounds while I was off work for the last week. That really boggled my mind given how much I've been eating. But then I've also been working on the basement. We're trying to finish it so that we can throw our children down there and lock the door. So I'm working at a feverish pace to get it done. It's slow work, but I'm making a bit of progress. Anyway, apparently all that work caused me to lose some weight. Perhaps I should ditch my actuarial job and get into construction. Then I wouldn't need to sign up for a triathlon to lose weight.
So there I am this morning in the pool. There are 4 lanes and there are two people already swimming. I choose the lane between them. I'm familiar with the guy who's swimming next to me. (I have no idea who the lady is and she's irrelevant to the story. Let's just say she's Star Jones and move on.) This guy is about 50 and some sort of eastern European immigrant. I'm basing that on three things: (1) he's short and stout, (2) he has a mustache and (3) he has an accent.
I've always wondering where he's from though. The Wife is part German and Czech (and Swedish, but that's not germane to the story). I'm part Polish. It's probably one of those. Today, I found out which nationality he is.
As I was swimming, I couldn't help but notice that the guy was a bit pungent. I thought it odd that someone could possibly smell so bad in a pool. And that's when I realized that I wasn't smelling B.O. I was smelling cologne. (Now there's another tip-off that he's eastern European. Too much cologne.) So I thought to myself, "what kind of person puts on a load of cologne before going swimming?" Aha! A Polack, that's who. In fact, he probably thought, "hey, I'm going swimming this morning, I'd better put on some extra cologne in case some of it washes off." It's this kind of thinking that got us solar-powered flashlights and submarines with screen doors.
Somehow, I managed to lose about 3 pounds while I was off work for the last week. That really boggled my mind given how much I've been eating. But then I've also been working on the basement. We're trying to finish it so that we can throw our children down there and lock the door. So I'm working at a feverish pace to get it done. It's slow work, but I'm making a bit of progress. Anyway, apparently all that work caused me to lose some weight. Perhaps I should ditch my actuarial job and get into construction. Then I wouldn't need to sign up for a triathlon to lose weight.
So there I am this morning in the pool. There are 4 lanes and there are two people already swimming. I choose the lane between them. I'm familiar with the guy who's swimming next to me. (I have no idea who the lady is and she's irrelevant to the story. Let's just say she's Star Jones and move on.) This guy is about 50 and some sort of eastern European immigrant. I'm basing that on three things: (1) he's short and stout, (2) he has a mustache and (3) he has an accent.
I've always wondering where he's from though. The Wife is part German and Czech (and Swedish, but that's not germane to the story). I'm part Polish. It's probably one of those. Today, I found out which nationality he is.
As I was swimming, I couldn't help but notice that the guy was a bit pungent. I thought it odd that someone could possibly smell so bad in a pool. And that's when I realized that I wasn't smelling B.O. I was smelling cologne. (Now there's another tip-off that he's eastern European. Too much cologne.) So I thought to myself, "what kind of person puts on a load of cologne before going swimming?" Aha! A Polack, that's who. In fact, he probably thought, "hey, I'm going swimming this morning, I'd better put on some extra cologne in case some of it washes off." It's this kind of thinking that got us solar-powered flashlights and submarines with screen doors.
