I Can Barely Take Care of Myself Jen Kirkman (best books for students to read txt) 📖

man in uniform rounded the corner. Here he was. Security. Tiny heads are gonna roll. Then the towering, broad-shouldered black man in uniform walked right by the boys in the hot tub, strolled past the preteen girls in the pool, and darted around the toddlers running on the pool’s edge. We watched him walk off into the bright sun back toward the hotel. Sarah was speechless, so I can’t really capture her reaction in print. It was a series of guttural sounds and wild hand gestures, like someone trying to make a w sound for the first time. “Don’t worry, partner,” I told her. “I’m going back out there.”

I got up and ran after the security guard, this time barefoot, hopping and saying, “Ouch, hot, ouch,” with every step. “Hey, security guy. What was that out there? You’re just going to walk by?” He said, “I think they got the message.” “What message? That security means nothing? That if they keep wading in the adult pool, security might . . . walk by again? Ooooh, scary. You have to actually say something to the kids, like, ‘Hi, you kids don’t look like you’re old enough to be here. You must leave this pool if you don’t get your period yet or have never had a wet dream.’ ”

He followed me back to the adult pool and talked to the kids and their parents. I went back to Child Watch Headquarters and let Sarah know that it had all been taken care of. “Uh, then what’s that?” Sarah asked. I looked and just as Security was walking away, the kids were getting back into the pool. Sarah and I retired from our beat that afternoon and ordered four more margaritas—well, we ordered six, but the waitress gave us a dirty look and said, “My tray only holds four.” And in a not-so-subtle way she said, “Four is a good limit. Dontcha think, girls?”

I SAT DEFEATED in Child Watch Headquarters, watching the kids finally get out of the pool as the sun started to go behind the clouds. I hadn’t yelled. I hadn’t said anything mean to the kids or about the kids to their parents. But I felt like a monster. How come I felt so guilty about wanting the rules to be enforced so that I could enjoy our vacation the way I paid for it?

It was the hotel’s rule that there was a separate pool for adults. Why can’t the two pools coexist without the generations crossing? It wouldn’t dawn on me to go act like an adult in the kids’ pool. I wouldn’t jump in the shallow end with a drink in my hand and start talking loudly to Sarah in front of a toddler about the best way to prevent a urinary tract infection after sex.

It’s so taboo to say that you don’t really enjoy the company of children. May I point out that the adults who brought their kids to the adult pool obviously did so because they did not want to be around only other children? Do they get a free pass because they procreated? I see parents all the time who get a kick out of saying, “I only like my kids. I don’t like other kids.” But if a single woman without children says, “I don’t like kids,” she sounds like a sociopath. I realize that one of those boys in the hot tub or girls in the pool could be president someday. I realize that we have children’s futures in our hands and they have our futures in theirs. I acknowledge that it’s a beautiful cycle and I’ll admit that I made myself tear up just typing that sentiment. I don’t want to be made to feel like a bitch because I’m upset that now, before those kids grow up to be president, they are peeing in my pool.

Sarah and I went back to our room and enjoyed some champagne on our balcony while we watched the sun set. We also maybe threw a pillow or two off the ledge. We also maybe threw an entire bag of Skittles, one by one, off the balcony at the people walking below (no, no children were harmed). We were well aware that throwing things off a balcony was against the rules, but we knew that the security and management team would be too lazy to bust us unless we told on ourselves.

I GOT HOME from the vacation to find out that there was a new upstairs neighbor in my fourplex apartment building—three new neighbors actually: a mommy, a daddy, and a toddler. My landlord made the executive decision to let a toddler live above a quiet, single woman who works from home as a writer on weekends. I long for the days when the twenty-six-year-old drunk girl lived upstairs and faked really loud, operatic orgasms until four in the morning. At least with her, I could count on the fact that she’d pass out immediately after and she’d stay asleep until about one o’clock the next day. (And if I was in the right mood, let’s be honest, it was scintillating to listen to the noises she was making.)

I’m sitting in my home office, typing, and I can hear him now, running up and down the length of his apartment. He sounds like he has weights in his shoes. Every once in a while he stops running, only to drop and then drop again a toy that sounds like a regulation-size bowling ball. I can hear his dad chasing him down the hallway playfully, which makes little Tony (I named him Tony) squeal with delight. Can we all admit that the sound of a kid squealing, even if it’s with joy, sounds like squealing? I can angrily press the button on an air horn or I can press the button on an air horn with a sense of carefree fun and either way it sounds like an air horn.

I woke up at five in the morning today because