From lounge lizard to Olympic athlete, meet characters who bring summer its warmth

Summer is officially here for me once I’ve jumped into my city’s outdoor pool. When I took the plunge on a recent weekend, the water temperature was a tad chilly, but it felt like a ceremonial cleanse. It felt as if I was washing off the detritus of the other seasons so I could fully embrace the summer.

One of my favorite things about this time of year is the predictability of it. You know it’s going to get hot and then hotter and that the behavior of people at the pool will stay the same, never varying from year to year.

As I settled into a chair at the pool, I saw the same cast of characters from last summer. Oh sure, they’re different people but the personality traits were the same. Starting with the lifeguards.

At the beginning of the summer the lifeguards are whistle happy. They’re blowing those whistles like NFL referees working youth football games. It’s a tooting, trilling frenzy.

The guards are fresh off of their training and still a good month away from 100-degree temperatures that will begin searing their very souls. The Lycra in their swimsuits remains stalwart.

By the time mid-July rolls around, you hear fewer whistles and more stern verbal communication — as in “No, you can’t go off the high dive in pairs” — accompanied by looks that say, “don’t test my patience.”

This look is hard to pull off in sunglasses, yet six weeks into the summer every single lifeguard will have mastered it.

As I gazed to my left I noticed “Team Tan.” This was where adults were shunning every single health guideline known to humanity and dousing themselves with Hawaiian Tropic Dark Tanning Oil with a SPF of “Ahoy, skin cancer.” (Officially it was termed “non SPF.”)

Now, while I love the smell of Hawaiian Tropic because its signature coconut scent hearkens back to my teenage years where I literally marinated in the stuff, it’s now inconceivable to me to venture outside without a SPF of at least 50.

I had to force myself to not say anything to these humans sacrificing themselves on the altar of the sun. As much as I wanted to blurt out a friendly, “Hey do you know they now make Hawaiian Tropic with SPF?” I reminded myself that in my experience, no good has ever come from a stranger sharing exceedingly helpful advice.

To distract myself, I focused on the lap lanes. If you ever want a microcosm of society, you need to look no further than the lap lanes at any public pool.

You have the Olympians with their tiny goggles and serious racing suits who swim with such ferocity you wonder what demons they’re trying to escape from.

Then there’s the grinders who slog through the water for what seems like hours — as in I finished my book and went to the snack bar twice and they were still swimming. Although they’re still moving very slowly, you wonder if someone needs to do a well-person check.

The worst is the lounge lizard. This is the person who camps out in the lap lane, although they can clearly see people are waiting. (It’s me. I’m the person waiting.) They’re swimming style focuses less on forward movement and more of enjoying leaning up against the side of the pool with an occasional flutter kick to let you know that they’re still “swimming.”

Although I should be annoyed by all this (and of course I was, but it was a low flame of irritation) I find that in a world that’s always full of surprises, it’s comforting to know that summer’s predictable rhythm remains unchanged.

Reach Sherry Kuehl at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com, on Facebook at Snarky in the Suburbs, on Twitter at @snarkynsuburbs on Instagram @snarky.in.the.suburbs, and snarkyinthesuburbs.com.