Giant Hairy Starfish

This weekend we had the pleasure of visiting not one, but TWO swimming pools. I'm going to say it. I hate the swimming pool with the intensity of a thousand fiery seahorses (which is actually quite intense).

I hate the swimming pool for a few reasons:

1. I dislike being naked in front of other people. And without fail, as soon as I remove a critical garment, one of my kids WILL certainly need my help, need to pee, or start to cry (hopefully the crying is not directly caused by my removal of said garment, but this is not impossible to consider).
2. My younger son is a reckless daredevil and every time we're there I spend the entire visit expecting him to either crack his head open, drown himself, or drown someone else. Or all three.
3. My older son is significantly less adventurous than his little brother and spends most visits to the pool cycling between crying, clinging to me, accidentally removing part of my swimsuit because of frantic clinging to me (which again triggers Hatred Reason 1.), asking to try something then backpedaling, crying again, begging to leave, and actually enjoying himself for a few fleeting moments.
4. The floors skeeve me out to no end. I don't know how hard it is to consider that your filthy outdoor shoes, spillable snacks, and nasty stroller wheels DO NOT belong in the locker room where people are barefoot. Specifically, where I am barefoot. And naked. 
5. And most importantly - the time and effort spent preparing for going swimming in no way even approaches the time spent enjoying swimming. Especially considering Hatred Reasons 2. and 3. above - "enjoying" is a relative term when you are the mother of these particular swimmers. But even their enjoyment is so just brief at this age - it hardly seems worth the investment. 

There are a few other activities that have similarly atrocious inverse relationships between effort and enjoyment. I have developed the following handy quick reference guide for the Hierarchy of Effort to Enjoyment. (This also illustrates the comparative frequency of certain activities in our home.) 

Now all this said - I would like to repeat that we went to TWO separate swimming pools this weekend! And I will continue to take them swimming, even though I think I really have proven my case that the pool sucks starfish. Giant hairy starfish.