POP GARRY: Listen to this one. Your brother just spent $1,000 on fancy swim lessons for his kids.
MOM LORI: I'm sure it is not $1,000. You're exaggerating.
POP GARRY: Well, it's pretty close. What do kids need with swim lessons? Whatever happened to throwing a kid in the water and seeing if he can sink or swim?
MOM LORI: Is that how your parents taught you?
POP GARRY: Yes. And there was only one hard-and-fast rule.
MOM LORI: No peeing in the pool?
POP GARRY: No. You could pee. But you had to wait a half hour after eating before you could go into the pool.
MOM LORI: Because you could cramp up and drown if your food was not properly digested?
POP GARRY: Exactly.
MOM LORI: Is that true?
POP GARRY: I don't know but when I was growing up in New York, the Jewish and the Italian kids like me, from the middle-class neighborhoods, would sit like bumps on a log waiting for the 30 minutes to go by. Meanwhile, the poor kids, from the bad neighborhoods, without any parental supervision would be in the pool the entire day long, feasting on hog dogs while their soda balanced on the edge of the pool. So I think the half-hour digestion rule was just an old wives' tale.
MOM LORI: I don't think swim lessons are an old wives' tale. It's important to teach your children to swim early and well.
POP GARRY: We paid all that money for you to take woodshop lessons and look where it got us? You can't even hammer a good nail.
MOM LORI: You would have preferred I became an expert carpenter instead of a writer?
POP GARRY: It would have been nice. You could have made your mother some nice kitchen cabinets.
MOM LORI: I made her a napkin holder.
POP GARRY: She still treasures it. You don't see many wooden napkin holders in the shape of an armadillo.
MOM LORI: That nose was hard to sand. But don't change the subject. What's the matter with fancy swim lessons? What's the harm? It's an important skill to learn.
POP GARRY: The whole idea of swim lessons is so pretentious. What's next? Fancy bike lessons? "We will teach your tot to pop a wheelie for $500." These are things kids should learn in the street from their friends.
MOM LORI: But why can't they just learn the basics from a teacher?
POP GARRY: There are no basics anymore. We were swimming with Sam the other day and your brother Scott yelled out "HOT DOG" followed by "WINDSHIELD WIPER."
MOM LORI: Meaning?
POP GARRY: In the world of swimming lessons, "hot dog" means roll over onto your back, and "windshield wiper" means wipe the hair out of your eyes. And for breast stroke, they call out, "Make a big pizza." It's a secret underground swim-language that you only learn if you pay the big bucks. You see? It's not even English!
MOM LORI: I just read a Miranda July short story in which a woman taught some people how to swim using bowls of water because they didn't have a pool.
POP GARRY: How much did she charge?
MOM LORI: I'm not sure.
POP GARRY: I'm sure it was cheaper than $1,000.
MOM LORI: Have you
 The Marshall brood splashing around |
forgotten that you gave my sister swimming lessons when she was little? And she was even on a high school all-American relay team with Dara Torres. Dara went on to win nine Olympic medals and she'll probably win another one this year.
POP GARRY: That was different. Your sister showed talent. Unfortunately, she also had a talent for chasing boys and she soon gave up swimming.
MOM LORI: It's not a sport for everyone, but I think everyone should, at the very least, learn how to do the basics. Unlike me.
POP GARRY: You know how to swim. We taught you when we were on vacation in Palm Springs.
MOM LORI: I know how to swim. I never learned how to dive.
POP GARRY: Well, most pools have ladders. But I'm sorry I failed you as a father.
MOM LORI: I'll think about forgiving you.
POP GARRY: Oh good. Then we can move on from this ridiculousness. By the way, I wish I had invented floaties.
MOM LORI: Why?
POP GARRY: Because some smart person out there figured out that parents would pay thousands of dollars for a piece of plastic that would hold up their kids' arms.
MOM LORI: I wish there were floaties for adults. To help hold you up in life when you are feeling tired or blue.
POP GARRY: You know, you might be onto something. Let's invent that. We can call it the Buoyant Body Buoy. Maybe we can get Oprah to endorse it.
MOM LORI: Yeah, okay. So, back to the point at hand: Will you stop picking on Scott for giving his kids fancy swim lessons?
POP GARRY: Sure. All he has to do is invest money in our Buoyant Body Bouy. I'm going to see if we can sell it on the Home Shopping Network.
MOM LORI: Good. Go check it out. I'll take the kids to swimming lessons. Who knows — maybe there's an adult diving course I can look into.
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