If I get tapeworm, I'll know why...

This was the least vomit-inducing picture of tapeworm I could find when I googled tapeworm images. 

You're welcome.

So I learned in high school that one way you can get tapeworm is if you step in the poop of an animal that has...I don't know...those square things that tapeworms shed when they're inside of animals.  And the square things come out in the poop and have, like, little baby tapeworms in them.

That sounds so official and scientific, right?  We've talked about my lack of political awareness and knowledge.  Add science to that list.  And math. 

I think, of all my sisters, I am the...ah...most mentally challenged one.  And that's sad.  But what I lack in mental facilities, I make up for in style.

Wait.  That's not true, either...

I'm good at some stuff.  I'm good at singing off-key on purpose to make people laugh.  It's a regular act I like to do for my Sunday School students.  They indulge me and let me sing off-key renditions of that Fourth Article of Faith song. 

I love them for that.

I'm pretty good at swearing.  I can make a good farting noise with my lips.

We all have our strengths.  It's just that science is not mine.  So don't make fun of me for not remembering high school science facts very well.

Anyways, we went swimming last weekend - my mom (my dad is in Tax Season Land, from where he will return April 16th.  We don't hear from him much this time of year.  He's basically at his office 24/7.  So he couldn't come.), my sister and her family, and my family.  We went to a place we'll call...Jade Ravine. 

And seriously, I don't know why we ever go there.  Because the place gives me serious PTSD.  It's been the same since I was a kid.  The front entrance is fine or whatever, and then you go into the changing room. 

And that's where the traumatic experience begins.

I can't speak for the men's room, but the women's changing room has been the same for, like, 30 years.  Or more.  The floor isn't tiled.  It's old, cracked cement.  There are a few drains in the floor, but the floor doesn't slope at all toward the drains.  So everyone's wetness is all over in these...stagnant pools on the floor.  I have strong suspicions that they don't clean the floor at all.  And I'm probably wrong.  It just feels like they don't.  The ceiling has old, warped, moldy wood rafters on it.  Each changing area has a flimsy curtain that isn't wide enough for the area, so if you really wanted to (which I never have), you could peek at people from the sides and see them in all their glorious nekkedness.

If you want to use the bathroom, oh, the trauma.  Again, wetness that hasn't drained.  Again with the old, cracked cement.  And then there are sometimes globs of toilet paper that fell to the ground and immediately got soaked.  The globs sit there, untouched.  Just looking gross.

Honestly, when I walk around in there, I walk on the edges of my feet.  It makes me feel better.  Like maybe I'm exposing less of my feet to the germs that are festering all over that place.

I'm not saying that there are wild animals pooping in there that will make me get tapeworm.  But I just feel so....exposed to disease.  It feels the same way I would feel as if, say, I walked into a room where everyone inside had the flu, and I had to stay in there, without ventilation, for three hours.  And wipe my hands and face with the same towel they had been using.

That's how it feels to go to...Jade Ravine.  You locals know which place I'm talking about.

When you get into the pool, if you look at the ceiling, it is made of metal rafters with rust and mold all over them.  They've been that way for as long as I can remember.

There used to be this swing at the deep end.  It was really high up from the water.  I never saw anyone actually get onto the swing.  But it was my dream to get up on that thing and swing, high above everyone else.  I honestly don't know how you'd go about it.  Make a ladder of people, from underwater, clear up, and climb up?  Have someone throw you up there and hope you catch the swing, and then pull yourself up from there?

There also used to be a slide that I loved going down.  Just a teeny little ten-foot slide.  But it was fun.  And I think they also had a diving board.

All those fun things are gone now.  All you're left with is these cesspool bathrooms.  Oh, and there is a little basketball hoop.

Oh.  And the warmest water ever.  Because Jade Ravine is situated at a hot springs.  You walk into the pool and it feels like a bathtub.  Immediately.  No shivering, no grimacing, no hugging your boobs to your body as you wade slowly into the water, teeth chattering. 

And it's a very, very gradual drop from shallow to deep.  The shallow end extends a really long way.  Which is important to mommies like me with teeny little wiggly boys.

And the pool itself is well-maintained and clean.  I take no issue with the pool part.

So maybe that's why we go to Jade Ravine.  Maybe we subject ourselves to the trauma of those bathrooms so that we can enjoy bathtub-like water, big shallow ends, and a well-maintained pool.