Through a sudden change of plans, the idyllic week we planned to spend at Bear Lake ended up being three days at a fancy hotel high in the Wasatch Mountains.
We had everything necessary for relaxation — room service, sunny weather, lounge chairs, pool, clean mountain air, excellent dining. So why do I feel like I lost a cage fight?
As with most attempts on one’s life, it started innocently enough. As I dozed in a lounge chair, dreaming about being washed up on a deserted island heavily stocked with dynamite, books and Haagen-Dazs, a small hand brushed my foot.
It was my 5-year-old granddaughter, Ada. Soaking wet in her swimsuit and shivering, she asked in the same voice a spider would use on a fly, “Papa, will you swim with me?”
I should know better by now. But Ada holds a large part of the mortgage on my heart, so I replied in the same voice a cow might use while being led to a slaughterhouse, “Of course, hon.”
While mothers who were already the hue and texture of old saddlery lounged in the sun just outside of splash range, their children had turned the pool into a gladiator ring. Into this melee, I was led.
Ada wasn’t interested in learning how to swim. She just wanted me to chase her while pretending to be a water monster.
Since the water was only 4-feet deep, I couldn’t catch her wading through it. I had to get down on my knees and swim-walk in pursuit. It hurt everywhere I have pins and screws, but, hey, it’s what she wanted.
Upon realizing that she couldn’t escape every time by swimming, Ada switched tactics. She used her social charms to round up a posse. Within 30 seconds, all the other kids in the pool were made giddy by the invitation to join in tormenting the slow-witted beast.
I was pelted with every pool toy Walmart sold, had my ears and nasal passages filled by squirt guns with the ballistic capabilities of military sniper rifles, and taunted to the verge of insanity.
“You can’t catch me!”
“Look out! Here it comes!”
“Hey! Mr. Water Hog!
Caution was both the rule and the reason I took such a beating. Fully aware that sunbaked moms were monitoring the fray from their lounge chairs, I had to be careful not to hold a tormentor underwater too long, or throw another too high.
Most important, I avoided grabbing kids clambering out of the pool. Catch one by the sagging seat of their swimsuit and the cops would doubtlessly be there a minute later. And the pool wasn’t deep enough to avoid gunfire.
I was the water monster for an hour. During that time, only one mother came to my aid by yelling at her son.
“Jeremy. Jeremy! If you’re going to kick that man in the head, you have to be in the pool, too.”
When I finally reached the point at which I might drown from exhaustion, I begged off and crawled out of the pool. The mob pleaded with me.
“Water monster, come back!”
“You’re more funner than my grandpa.”
“You’re tired already?”
As I tried to catch my breath in the lounge chair, I envisioned being washed ashore on an island heavily stocked with fentanyl and morphine. And dynamite. I could make depth charges.
I was still breathing hard when a small hand brushed my foot. I opened my eyes. A dozen dripping kids surrounded me, none of them mine.
“Are you done resting yet, Ada’s grandpa?”
Robert Kirby is The Salt Lake Tribune’s humor columnist. Follow Kirby on Facebook.
