Curb Your Enthusiasm

In my daughter's swim class, you, the parent, are asked (commanded) to get in the pool. But the instructor is twelve years old, and she can't stand up to lazy parents. So one mom has simply refused to get in the pool--which means that the instructor has to work one-on-one with the kid in question, and the other kids are ignored.

Thus the rule-breaking mom is rewarded for breaking the rules. Because I'm immature, I do not address this matter with a direct, rational conversation; instead, I loudly narrate the outrageousness, to my husband, and just hope that the naughty mom might overhear me.

My spouse is slightly more reasonable, so he did attempt to engage the twelve-year-old in a conversation. This poor kid. I could sense that she wanted to get back to YouTube. "A parent *is* meant to be in the pool," she said, "but only if the kid is a tadpole. Felicity's son has advanced beyond tadpole status, so Felicity can be on the bench."

"So," said Marc. "You're saying that the kid is in the wrong class. He is misplaced among the tadpoles, and no one is addressing the fact that he is in the wrong class."

"Well, I'm not saying that. He's not quite a tadpole, and he's not a young frog. He is in between....There's no great place for him, really."

"Have you looked at a life cycle chart?" is what my husband did not ask. "Because he's either a fucking tadpole, or he isn't. 'Not quite' is a pair of words that doesn't really apply....in this wing of biology...."

I don't always side with Larry David, but on Sunday's "Curb," I felt Larry's outrage. Larry's neighbor has a lemon tree, and it spills its contents onto Larry's yard. Instead of arranging to deal with this, the neighbor decides that Larry should be charged for making use of the (unsolicited) waste. The neighbor presents this plan at a wake--where Larry needs to feign sympathy, and needs to cave in to many (if not all) requests. I'm glad that Larry stands his ground. The father/father-in-law distinction is (additionally) a fine touch.

Wish me luck at the pool.

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