Last night whilst Paul was multi-tasking (playing ‘boardgames’, and babysitting) I enjoyed a late night swim, and lounge around in the Jacuzzi at the gym. Not too surprisingly my thoughts turned to a friend’s observations on Jacuzzi etiquette. I have three observations of my own – which since I’m lacking inspiration and motivation to write anything else, I will put here.
1) My friend, Steer is right that there is an unwritten rule that when the bubbles stop whoever is nearest the steps (and consequently nearest to the Jacuzzi ‘on’ button) is expected to get out to turn it back on. However, there also appears to be a chivalrous element to the male gym members and if it is a woman nearest to the bubbles then she isn’t expected to get out. There’s not even an ‘are you going to go or am I’ questioning look – as soon as the bubbles stop there’s a chivalrous man half standing up to get out. (And I double checked that it applies to women generally not just me – so it can’t be explained by them not wanting to see my blubbery body!)
2) No body speaks to anybody in the Jacuzzi, unless they already know them. In fact, there is almost a London Underground determination not even to make eye contact – let alone say thank you if some presses the on button. I particularly notice this, because if you are sat in non-bubbling hot water in the toddler pool there is almost an inverse expectation that you will chat to other parents as your child refuses to share floats/toys with theirs! Yet I can’t be the only person who sits in both places – such situational conditioning!
3) Far too many times when I have been recently (late at night without Ellie – with the main intention of going of sitting in the Jacuzzi and avoiding all exercise), the Jacuzzi has been out of action. I am sure this is linked to the extra frothy water which often occurs and which Steer and I have speculated is possibly due to people failing to rinse their shampoo. Anyway, last night I found floating in the Jacuzzi a half full travel size shampoo bottle (thankfully with lid on), which I fished out. I suspect it says a lot about the gym prices that it was a bottle of Molton Brown shampoo!!!
As you can tell, it was a lovely evening – very relaxing, and completely switched off from work and motherhood!
2 comments:
Bet they bought the Molton Brown shampoo cheap from QVC (not that I've ever watched QVC to know that they sell it you understand, someone told me they sold it, yes, that was it, someone mentioned it to me in passing).
I wish (oh I wish) that I could spend enough time in a jacuzzi to learn the rules! But isn't it interesting how these rituals evolve. Imagine the anthropologists studying our jacuzzi rituals.
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