Saturday in December

I thought it might be nice to write about something other than death and panic attacks, just for a change. So today I will write about the long-awaited first meet of the MCPS high school swim season, and the first high school meet since February 2020 before the whole world lost its damn mind. 

It's 9:30 on Saturday morning, and we're sitting through dive warm ups at the Olney Swim Center. Swimmers will warm up next and then this thing will get started. I just stood through the officials' briefing. After 11 years as a swim official, I know the rules pretty well, and that means that I have to attend the briefing, because that's one of the rules. 

Our Colorado starter is making a horrible screeching noise. After almost two years, it's out of practice, just like the rest of us. Now the dive competition is underway and I'm dutifully clapping for each diver, but I don't know a good dive from a bad one. Fortunately, swim officials don't have to judge the dive meet. We just watch and wait until it's our time to go to work. 

We all gathered at a team family's home last night for the pre-meet pasta party. The house was decorated for Christmas, cozy and festive, and it was nice to see everyone again. We woke up this morning and gathered towels and caps and goggles and rule books--and masks,of course, because this isn't over yet--and we rolled up to the pool like the last 21 months didn't even happen. 

*****

And that's our first meet of the season in the books. I'm sitting in my car outside the local Chick-Fil-A, a favorite post-meet lunch spot, and it's just the same as every other post-meet lunch. Kids with wet hair and goggle eyes wearing hoodies and flannel pajama pants, eating chicken sandwiches and fries as if they'd never eaten before. Swimming makes a person hungry. The starter settled down and the meet went smoothly and I don't know who won because it was a scrimmage and they didn't keep score. But we'll see the times later. No one cares, anyway. No one cares about the results. We're just happy to be back in the pool.