We joined a new pool this summer, and while I know some of the weekday women who hang up there (and am friends with a couple), overall we haven't really 'clicked' yet. Part of the reason is that I am sometimes relegated to the baby pool, which makes me an instant social pariah. When we manage to get out to the main pool, I am so busy chasing after Henry and yelling at Julia and trying to hand signal to Katie from across the pool to pull her bathing suit out of her butt, that I undoubtedly come across as a loud, sweaty, screamy mess with uncontrollable children.
Which may be accurate.
One day last week, Henry decided to nap at the pool, allowing me a brief period of quiet observation. Time to scope out the other mommies. Why are they all so good looking? Why are they all in super cute bathing suits? Why are they all wearing jewelry? Huge, dangly earrings, people! Who the fuck wears huge dangly earrings to the pool?
Snobby bitches, that's who.
I will be the first to admit that I am a judgmental cow. I look at your dangly earrings and cute bikini (and how the shit after multiple children you can have a stomach that does not look like a pumpkin that's sat on the porch for a month after Halloween, I have no idea) and - are you drinking a mojito? - I have you pegged. Your kids are always clean and wear boutique dresses and you monogramm everything. You shave your legs frequently, and have your brows waxed before they look like Andy Rooney's. You read Nicholas Sparks. Oh yes, I know all about you.
I am a little bit jealous.
Recently, an acquaintance said something to me along the lines of "You're always so put together." I actually looked around, thinking maybe someone else had come up behind me. "What?" I laughed. "You know," she said, "You always look nice and your house is clean and your kids are so well behaved." My kids? You do know who my kids are, right? Then I realized - she thinks I'm one of them! She thinks I'm a snobby bitch! How is this possible?
I LOVE RAMEN NOODLES! I want to shout. I have chronically bad gas! I actually suggested to my husband this very evening that he just strip the baby down and hose him off in the backyard, in lieu of a bath! I am the very antithesis of a snobby bitch (except maybe when it comes to books, because there is simply no fucking reason anyone should ever read Nicholas Sparks. Ever.).
How can someone have such a hugely wrong impression of me, based on seeing me a handful of times - times when I have actually managed not to have food on my shirt? Ohhhhhh, I think. Have I given the snobby bitches a fair shake? Have I given them a chance? I may be right, they may be petty and small and want nothing to do with me. But the least I could do is pull up a chair, and give them the opportunity to prove me wrong.
I draw the line at dangly earrings, though.
1 year ago
