Flippers! Are You Kidding Me?

I was getting in the pool this morning, not wanting to be there. It was cool and gray with a damp wind outside. I was cold, and I spent a full five minutes in the pool shower. I was surprised they keep their water as hot as they do. When I got bored and convinced myself that the pool would be almost as warm as my shower I got in. It was crowded. Two of the four lanes already had two swimmers. One of the other two had a guy doing a wicked backstroke. The other had a woman kind of splashing around and showing no swim lane courtesy. I chose the lane with the woman because even though she was hogging the pool, she still wasn’t taking up as much space as backstroke guy. It must have been my lucky day because she finished up almost as soon as I got in. I don’t know if she was uncomfortable or really done and I don’t care. I had a lane all to myself. I timed this thing just right because it was twenty minutes before anyone else showed up, and by then it was only backstroke guy and me in the pool. I was catching my breath and started watching backstroke guy. I was seriously impressed. He was gliding through the water almost effortlessly. Something about him looked weird but I didn’t think about it too much. Then he did a flip turn at the end of a lap and his feet came out of the water. He was wearing flippers, royal blue SCUBA style flippers in a pool doing the backstroke. Seriously? I’ve seen a guy in the pool with flippers before, along with a snorkel, but that guy was shot down over France by the Red Baron in 1917. Backstroke flipper guy couldn’t have been older than forty. I’m struggling to stay alive and this guy might as well have been playing Marco Polo. I should have known because his stroke didn’t look anything like Olympic backstroke swimmers. This is a free country but come on, man.