19th
douche
I was in a tired funk and decided to go swim it out at an indoor public pool.
I get to the pool and have two more tragic realizations; I’ve forgotten my flipflops and I’m not properly shaved. So I shower and shave and imagine the range of foul fungi that are inevitably fondling my feet.
I put on my bikini (dry), grab my swim hat and some goggles and take long, tip-toeing strides out to the pool. I notice the lifeguard smirking as I stand ankle deep on the top step and fumble with my swimhat (swimhats suck) and adjust the elastic in my goggles.
Everything’s OK, I’m just going to disappear into the water and my body will go weightless and my mind will go clear. But now the lifeguard’s talking to me in Turkish. He’s asking me whether I’m going to use the shower (duş, pronounced douche). I don’t know how to protest “but I’m so fresh and so clean and so silky smooth” in Turkish. I blink at him blankly through my purple tinted goggles and irrationally I begin to hate him. The showers by the pool are tiles and foot fungi filled tiles away from where I’m standing.
I don’t like him, I don’t like the way he’s looking at me, I don’t like the way his body is all practiced-nonchalant-akimbo in the plastic chair. I’m jealous he can speak this language, I’m jealous of his flipflops, dammit. Is he the same guy who told Tragos and me off for sitting on the edge of the jacuzzi last week?
“Duş?” he speaks simply now.
“Douche? Oh hi, it’s nice to meet you, douche…” I think.
“Duş, evet.” ( Douche, yes) I say, and go shower again and then backdive into the pool just to be illegal and because it feels good.
