by RAF KATIGBAK

When Mayor Tremblay recently announced the closing of most public outdoor pools in the Montreal region following the grim results of bacterial lab tests, my first reaction was... ummm... what’s the opposite of “shock” again? I mean, have you ever been to a public pool bathroom? It’s where germs go when they’ve been bad. It’s basically a gulag for bacteria, that’s how nasty it is. Perhaps this was the city’s first clue that something was wrong.

“Hmmm, the place where people are supposed to get clean before and after they swim looks like the prison from Midnight Express. Maybe we should test the water?”

Sure enough, a Montreal laboratory analyzed three water samples from each of the city’s pools during July and August and found E. coli, Clostridium difficile and legionella. That’s right, legionella. How this antiquated-sounding strain of pneumonia managed to survive in our public pool system is beyond me. What’ll they find next, coal miners’ black lung in our Brita filters? Scurvy in our oatmeal?

While there have not been any reports of a significant outbreak, 48 pools will close until independent testing confirms they are not filled with total grossness. As is most often the case, the situation’s even worse in Laval.

Being a non-swimmer, I must admit, I have a certain bias against swimming pools. As a child, I would sit helpless as a beached whale as my friends would frolic at the Elm Park pool. Between cannonballing and half-completed somersaults they would try in vain to wave me in. “Come in” they would yell, “the water’s fine!” But I knew differently. I knew that so many people in one isolated body of water could never be “fine.”

As I scanned the scrunched faces of the toddlers buoyed by their bloated bright orange water wings, I looked for the one. That solitary boy or girl whose face, at one moment very strained, gradually relaxed into Zen-like contentment. That one boy or girl who, at that instant, was taking a wiz. Call me prissy, but as a child, splashing around in urine-soaked water was not something I wanted to spend my summer days doing (even now it’s something I reserve for the privacy of my own leather-padded gimp dungeon).

But for those of you who insist on swimming, because you enjoy the exercise or think fecal coliform contamination is just a fancy load of horse hockey, just remember these important water safety rules:

• Before diving head first into a pool, make sure there is water in it.

• If you accidentally drop your hot dog in the pool, do not dive in after it. If it was meant to be, it will eventually float back to you.

• Unless your friend has a really juicy piece of gossip or your tan totally needs work, never leave your child unattended at the pool.

• Fact: Infants can drown in only a few centimetres (one inch) of water. Try it out!

• Contrary to what you may have heard, intercourse in a pool does not reduce risk of pregnancy. Unless you are standing up when you do it, and then jump up and down 20 times right after. Then it’s all clear.

• Water and alcohol don’t mix. When you bring your cocktail into the pool, make sure nothing splashes into it, watering it down.

• The foam noodle swimming aids are not a substitute for approved life vests and can be dangerous. Especially when used in pugilist combat for determining who is “king of the swimming pool.”

• Despite popular belief, the special chemical additive that turns water blue in the presence of urine does not actually exist. In fact, I’m testing it right now, all over you.

• Swimming may be the only activity that is safer for larger people, as the more body fat you have the easier it is to float. I mean, have you ever tried to drown a fatty? Those guys are like, impossible to kill.

• When at a public beach, be aware of the safe swimming boundaries. If you notice that you have gone beyond the buoyed ropes, then you may have floated past the lifeguarded area. If then you notice a globular cluster of celestial bodies containing nine pulsars (neutron stars which are the remnants of ancient supernova explosions), then you have floated into M15, the densest of all star clusters in the Milky Way. This is also known as being “up shit creek.”

Riff-Raff@sympatico.ca

>> Music Listings