Larry David is the true god (first of a series)

Curb your Enthusiasm is among the most original shows that has ever been developed and brought to television. If you've seen it, you know it. If you're not a viewer, or find David's humor, or sense of humor, lacking, then this post will not be worth your time.

For quite some time I have been experiencing moments that could be tweaked slightly enough to become the spine for a Curb episode. At some point I may go back and post these moments, but at this time I am going to post an incident that occured this morning, and I hope to let it be the first what I suspect will be a series that documents Larry David like moments that I have.

The story.

I work out regularly at a gym near my suburban DC home. It's a relatively upscale gym, with a demanding, middle-aged clientele. Lots of folks there work with personal trainers, seem to have the leisure time and lifestyle to utilize this facility, and seem to make it a part of their lives.

Mostly I ride a stationary bike, sometimes I use one of the ellipticals, and on rare occasion I'll dig into a rowing machine, and numb myself with that form of repetitive exercise.

This gym has a small but decent looking pool, with 4 lap lanes of 25 yards each. Not too bad for an indoor facility on the east coast. I'm not one to swim for a workout, but I thought I would give it a shot this morning, providing some variety from the standards of this machine or that machine.

So I bring the right equipment, which is basically a swimsuit, and head on in to the pool. When I get there, there are swimmers in each of the lanes, one per, with one woman standing on the deck at the other end of the pool, hovering over one of the middle lanes. Within a minute the lane in front of the hovering woman opens up, and she jumps in.

The person who left this lane seemed to have a conversation with the person in the end lane, the one next to her, and it's not clear if they're both leaving the pool, or just chatting for a moment. So I decide to jump in to this lane, the end lane, on the opposite end from the chatting women. I've got my goggles on, and I'm in the first lap, heading towards the other end at a pace that would make Michael Phelps' mother double over in laughter.

Halfway through this lap I sense a body coming down the other half of the lane, on the other side, and I realize that the other chatting woman had not left the water with her friend, but had just taken a break. No big deal. These lanes are wide enough to accomodate two, particularly if we keep the the pace that has us passing roughly in mid-lap. Again, there are five of us using four lanes, which I suspect is nothing unusual. Frankly, I suspect there's often 8 or 10 or even more people in the pool at the same time.

I get to the wall at the end of the first lap (or half lap, if it's counted that way, as I don't know the way swimmer's count), and move over to the other half of this lane, and proceed to swim my second lap (or complete my first lap, depending on how you're scoring at home). About halfway through this lap I sense something ahead of me in my lane. Since we're not out in open water, and since I counted five of us in the water before I started this lap, and since I didn't hear any noise from the lifeguard, or hear anything that would suggest something big fell in the pool, I suspected it was the woman with whom I was sharing the lane.

Turns out she had stopped her stroke, and launched into a series of questions regarding lanes and sides and swimming etiquette and the like.

On the street, in the subway, when driving, when biking on trails, in crowded corridors, we're taught and often follow the rule 'to the right.'

When swimming, why would this be any different?

Well, apparently the speedo clad suburban mom I encountered had a different approach to swimming, one that has her swim her little half of the lane the whole way up and back. Not my idea of a smart way to go about this, but apparently her way, and apparently to her, her way is the right way.

Her questions literally stopped me in my tracks. It's kind of hard to swim past an animated object standing directly ahead of you, attempting to berate you for something they're doing incorrectly, so I was compelled to address them.

And in response I told her to take the entire lane, and that I would leave the pool. Which I did. Gladly.

It's enough to have to see some people in swimsuits. Those of images you often don't want to maintain. It's quite another to have to wallow in water with them.

I'll be back on the bike tomorrow morning, and hope the person next to me doesn't decide to move their stationary bike into a non-existent lane.