Make my day

By Sheryl Jedlinski

My first day back swimming laps since my bout with pneumonia did not go according to plan. I arrived at the pool to find that all of the lanes, except one, already had two people in them, and the one older man who had a lane to himself was determined not to share it. I slid off the edge of the pool into his lane where he was walking laps and swinging water bar bells. I said hello and, following swimming etiquette, politely asked whether he preferred the right or the left side of the lane.

“I need the whole lane,” the man told me. “When I’m walking backwards, I can’t see if someone is behind me and I wouldn’t want to walk into them.”

At one time or another, we all find ourselves sharing a lane with strangers we would not necessarily choose as friends. If…