I Can Barely Take Care of Myself by Jen Kirkman Page B

she’d call security for me. Okay. Now we were getting somewhere. Security. I went back to the cabana and Sarah and I watched and waited for security. I was ready for plastic handcuffs to be slapped on some toddlers and their rule-breaking moms. While we were waiting we spotted a heavy preteen girl whose boobs had not grown as round as her thighs and stomachjust yet. She seemed awkward and unhappy. She held her tired-looking mom’s hand as they walked around the adults-only pool, looking for lounge chairs. Sarah and I shared a look.
    “She can stay,” I said.
    “Yeah,” Sarah agreed. “She’d probably get bullied by some assholes at the kids’ pool. Who knows what she may have already been through.”
    “Yeah,” I said, “she’s obviously got some weird enmeshmentshit going on with her mom too. They can’t be apart and this girl seems like an old soul.”
    Just then a towering, broad-shouldered black 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 toddlersrunning 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, thistime 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’tlook 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, thekids 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 thesun 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 soguilty 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 generationscrossing? 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 adultpool 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.