Fasten your seat belt; it’s going to be a politically incorrect ride. 

There is just no way to write about a small town water park without sounding like Eliza Elitist, but there is also no way that I can kept the images I saw at such a water park locked inside my head. If you could help me heal my mental damage by absorbing the visual details as I pour them out, I would be most grateful. Thank you in advance.

Let me get right to the point. There should be two types of water parks 1) Hygienic People Water Park and 2) Not Hygienic People Water Park. 

Stop barking - I hear the cacophony of voices howling in retort that a separation of water park people sounds exclusive, discriminatory, selective or just plain snobby.  Maybe so, but should people with exposed wounds swim with people who do not have open sores on their bodies?

Your first response (I know you) is to tell me this discussion is a matter of economics and that I am bating a class war.  I encourage you to rethink that position and consider that if one can afford plastic breasts to the tune of at least $3,000, then one can afford a $1.69 pair of toenail clippers.  Truly, should an unsuspecting water shoot rider be accosted by the thick, yellowed, and extremely long toenail of another water park guest?

And back to those breasts – wtf?  How can every Misty, Jerilyn and Hope afford new titties?  This is how: Misty scraps together $10,000 for a butt suck and boob blast and when it’s time for her children to go to college, Misty’s children get financial aid.  Meanwhile, I buy a Target bra to hoist my sagging breasts and bank $10,000 in the college savings account. My reward, aside from naturally sloppy breasts, is that my children do not qualify for financial aid, and I get to pay full price for college while Misty claims lower income and gets discounted college tuition. 

(This fact is somewhat tangential to this conversation, but because it’s so amazing I use every chance I get to tell anyone who will listen that this year we are paying $78,000+ in college tuition for two children.  Let that soak in for a minute.)

Truly, at the water park there was a meemaw looking woman wearing a t-shirt and jean shorts with her “hard-as-a-rock” breasts staring right at me at every turn-style.  Meemaw looked like she just got out of Jed Clampet’s truck and was on her way to a senior citizen porn audition.  If she could afford those breasts (and fake teeth), then why couldn’t she splurge on a bathing suit?

Not only did open wounds and gnarly toenails put me off my feed, but the smokers who punctuated their nasty habit with a “hocka-pa-tooey” on the ground in front of me completely grossed me out.  Walking behind Carruso (I know that’s his name because it was tattooed across the entire span of his upper back) and trying to make sure my asthmatic son avoids the smoke billowing out of Carruso’s body, I stop in my tracks as Carruso hocks up a big loogey and spits it on to the cement where the entire water park population walks BAREFOOTED. 

My skinny 4-year old son has no body fat, and therefore felt like the swim-up bar filled with warm water was the best place for him to be during our water park visit.  How much I enjoyed sitting on a cement stool in the swim-up bar amidst the warm water that was busy breeding disease. Emphatically, the most disgusting water park guests gravitate toward the hot, still water. So wisely, smoking is allowed IN the swim-up bar so that immensely overweight people prop themselves up against the walls of the hot tub and hold a mammoth can of Foster’s beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other hand. 

The hot pool is not restricted to adults; there are plenty of children in the warm water eating ice cream and dropping it in the water.  In retrospect, I am certain there was a pinched look on my face as I watched cigarette ashes and Dippin’ Dots fall into the pool.  I could feel all the drunk people slurring about how uptight I looked – may their waterborne diarrheal infection never end.

In short, I am not asking for a water park that will go so far as to cull out the run of the mill strippers who wear jeweled charms on their bikinis (my son enjoyed fondling those charms while striking up a conversation at the swim-up bar). Also, I am not making a case for weeding out the guys who don’t wear bathing suits but instead wear shorts that reveal startling shots of their wieners.  And while I would love to legislate that all water park goers first adhere to an intense skin exfoliation, I am willing to concede that standard as well. All I ask is that we ban open wounds, gummy toes, blowing one’s nose in the pool, disposing of cigarettes in the water, expectorating bodily fluid on the ground, and eating turkey legs with less than a full set of teeth.

P.S. Watch this.

Comments

[hokgardner]

I had similar thoughts after visiting said water park last summer. My children are begging for a return visit, but I'm not sure I can stomach it. And there should have been some sort of warning with that video link!

[Polly Poppins]

This seems completely reasonable to me. You should start a petition.

[R Spector]

What kind of water park are you going to that they let you smoke, eat and drink in the water?!?!? All I have to worry about is ecoli! I agree with the need for a warning on the vidio thing.

[Izzy]

OMG..I feel sick after after reading that. Actually, the whole concept of shared water really is kind of gross, even when heavily chlorinated.

[MommaK]

*wiping vomit from mouth* Okay, I'm back.

Two years ago, I went to our small town waterpark and the amount of snot, sperm and pubic hair floating around was enough to scar me for life.

I love this post, though. I love it even through my eyes watering from the gagging.

[Heather Hitchcock]

Oh that is gross!

I'm heading to a water park in about 2 weeks and now I am not so sure....

[Momma Em]

EWWWW!!! That's a good reason to go swim in a lake or river somewhere the crowds of people haven't been.

[Daisy]

Oh, my. Of course, the people who need to read this will not -- or they won't recognize themselves. Eew. This isn't a class issue: it's a "duh, let's be sanitary" issue. I feel for you. (Not too much, though, or I'll heave, too.)