Swim Disguise

At Chick-Fil-A this past Saturday, I glanced over to the line of people waiting to order and noticed my neighbor. While she waited, she looked around Chick-Fil-A, and as her eyes neared me, I waved at her.

We primarily see each other at the pool and occasionally will lap swim together. We’ve had many discussions over the years while we kickboard together, from the loss of her mom, turmoils at our jobs, the loss of her job, cost of electricity, discussions about travel, etc. We’ve known each other for years. She has an incredible memory for details and pretty much remembers every single thing anyone tells her.

She looked at me, then looked again. I could tell she didn’t recognize me at the first glance, and when she did recognize me, she said, “Oh, I’m so glad you waved! I didn’t recognize you at first. Is William here?”

I replied that he was, he was just playing in the playground area. She said, “Oh, that makes sense.”

I didn’t think anymore about it until the next day and remembered she had done that to me before. I showed up at a community board meeting and she didn’t know who I was until I started talking to the board about some of the issues we were having at the pool. She told me later she hadn’t recognized me, and that I sure looked nice dressed in my business suit.

Now, I’m starting to wonder… do I really look THAT different in street clothes than when I’m at the pool? I’m not sure if my swim suit is totally grungy (probably), or if I just look way different in a swim cap vs. having long hair (maybe?), or maybe we’re just pool friends (fair weather friends?). Possibly, I’m just “William’s mom” now (grunt.). Or maybe, now that I’m in my 40’s, I’ve finally melded into the non-descript portion of the population (another grunt).