This Sort of Thing Never Happens at the Aquatics Center.

Could he have been lurking behind a poolside palm?

She smiled and added that’s all he wanted her to say.

I took a long sip and quickly looked over my shoulder at the pool. Hopelessly blind, I saw only humanoid shapes and blue water. I darted my head back into my book like a box turtle seeing an approaching hyena. Poo.

Surely, my husband sent this to me. I took another sip.

“Maybe I should have worried more about what I looked like before I came down here,” commented a lady from two lounges over. I offered a weak smile and nervously vomited forth all sorts of babble how it had to be my husband.

Or maybe there was a stranger lurking poolside into providing charity for women wearing reading glasses perched coyly over top their Jackie O. sunglasses?

Why did I paint my toenails blue? No wife, mother, normal woman over the age of 23.3 years of age paints her toenails blue. I had wanted adventure but finding a rare gnawing starfish was all I dreamt might happen.

I sipped again. It would be a pity to let all this Slurpee goodness melt away before my part-time admirer, part-time serial killer came to introduce himself before gallantly cramming me into his glove compartment.

It’s not like a stranger never bought me a drink. Okay, it’s been decades and I never did it well. Once this sandy-haired, short fellow brushed by me as he flew out the door. The bartender had said that the drink buyer was a golf pro. The episode left me wondering who would give someone a drink then leave?

Right now non-engagement seemed thoughtful, so nice. And so would a pitching wedge casually resting under my lounge. Never know when you might need to hop down on the beach to practice hacking out of sand trap or fending off a stage-four psychopath hooked on web sites dedicated to nothing but images of spider veins, cellulite and pathetic attempts at youthful nail color. A lone soul bereft of reason who finally crept out to see the real thing. I took another sip. Wouldn’t want to make him angry, like I wasn’t appreciating his largess.

The drink was very good. Maybe having a secret, drink-sponsoring fruitcake might not be so bad? 

“I couldn’t believe you didn’t turn around?”

“I turned around,” I said calmly to my husband who finally appeared.

As proof of his viewpoint, he remarked on a friend’s observation. “She didn’t even turn around. She’s drinking it. This must happen to her all time.”

I laughed the confident laugh of a woman used to being showered with drinks by wealthy sane beings. Not the laugh of a woman with a towel pulled up to her eyes watching the movements of every male between the ages of 65 and 90 she gauged still could run 50-meters in 5 minutes flat.

 I guess it was nice to be married to a guy who sends his wife a drink after 22 years of marriage. Though to be honest, he probably is a bit certifiable.

Well, it certainly isn’t me.