Reflections on the Twelfth Week of Winter – The Stinging Stench 

YMCA Pool

When I opened the door to the pool after a hot, pre-swim shower on March fifth, a pungent odor stung my nose. Yuck! Had Sandy found a new cleaner with a weird mix of bleach and lime or mint? Sometimes she―a custodian, spiritual healer, and writer of essays about angels―attacked germs and grime with generous amounts of cleaner. Hoping to leave the odor behind, I held the railing and descended the wet steps.

On the deck of the pool, the odor intensified. More than Sandy’s most zealous cleaning.

Leanne called from the first lane. “Can you smell that?” She marched, bent her elbows, and swung her fists through the water.

“Yeah.” I squinted at her through goggles. “Your face looks gray. Are you all right?”

“The smell bothered my asthma so I opened the door.” Pointing toward the doorway leading to the weight room hall, she switched to running in place, pulled her arm under the water, and swished her arms side to side. “There’s too much chlorine in the water today.”

Did I want another swim in irritating chlorine-saturated water [See “Swimming Irritations” December 4, 2016], or should I waste the effort I spent driving and dressing? I glanced from the water to the shower room stairs and shivered. Warm water beat cool air.

I hustled in with Leanne and half a dozen other swimmers, pushed off the wall, and pulled my arms in a breast stroke. Water streamed around my body as smooth as silk―not the scratchy feel I’d expected from excess chlorine reacting with my skin. Watching the bubbles rise from exhaling under water, I surfaced and gulped a large breath. The stinky air scratched the back of my throat like a nail file scratching an eyeball. At the end of the first lap, I clung to the edge of the pool and coughed.

Kneeling near me, the young lifeguard pulled a chlorine test vial out of the pool.

Coughing several more times, I said, “What’s the chlorine level?”

She studied the tube. “It’s normal. The best it’s been in weeks.”

The pool didn’t have too much chlorine. What was the smell? Inhaling, I coughed and pushed off for the swim back to the shallow end.

Above the shallow end, I spied two pairs of clothed legs on deck. The voice of Tricia, the YMCA’s program director, said, “We should close the pool.”

“No. I’ll check the pump room,” the voice of the executive director Kristoph said. Some swimmers rhyme his name with a phrase starting with the letter p. I don’t. The rhyme might slip out at an inappropriate time.

The pairs of legs moved in opposite directions.

I scissor-kicked for sidestroke, inhaled, and coughed. Breathing the pungent air couldn’t be good for my lungs―especially since I took deep breaths. If only I could stay under water for the fifty minutes to finish my three-quarter mile swim.

From my side angle, I watched Tricia stand on tiptoes and open a window. Fourteen degree air [negative ten degrees Celcius] rushed over the pool. Mist hovered above the water. I sidestroked through the mist. Brrrrrr.

When I headed toward the deep end for my tenth lap, I heard a feeble whistle mixed with the sound of swishing water. I stopped. Treading, I looked toward the lifeguard chair. The lifeguard pulled a whistle from her mouth, and Kristoph strode toward the hall like a person on a mission.

Leanne shouted. “They’re closing the pool. The chlorine pump is leaking.”

Following Leanne and the others out of the pool, I climbed the steps to the shower room. The door closed on the pungent odor. The shower room’s fragrance of damp and soap smelled as fresh as rain-washed spring air. Aaaah.

With showers spraying and the exhaust fan whirring, Leanne shouted, “My eyes were burning down there. Were yours?”

“No. I wore goggles.” I soaped between my toes. “Didn’t they use chlorine gas in World War One?”

“I never heard that.” A shampoo bottle clattered to the floor in Leanne’s stall. “Why would they?”

“As a weapon. To kill people.” I rinsed, turned the shower off, and reached for a towel. Burying my face in it, I inhaled its clean cotton fragrance and got a whiff of the pungent odor. Sheesh. The stench had crept into the shower room. “I’ll meet you in the locker room, Leanne.”

After I fastened my bra hooks and pulled up my panties, the gym teacher who led Silver Sneaker exercises came into the women’s locker room. Her neon pink spiked hair commanded my entire attention. Her hair had been lime green the week before and purple before that.

She tugged at the name tag on her lanyard. “We’re evacuating the Y. You need to leave.”

“Not until I get dressed.” I pulled my turtleneck out of the locker. “It’s cold outside.”

She leaned against a locker and watched another swimmer and me dressing as if we were students in her study hall. “Okay.”

“Did the smell drift into the gym?” I poked my head out of the turtleneck.

The gym teacher wrinkled her nose. “I smelled it near the end of class. I thought Sandy was cleaning the family locker room next door.” She straightened and swiveled around. “The fire department will come through to sweep the area. I’ll tell them there are still two in the locker room.”

“Three. Leanne’s in the shower.” I padded back to the shower room. “They’re evacuating the Y, Leanne.”

“Thanks.” Her shower stopped spraying. “I’ll hurry.”

Dressed, bundled, and toting swim gear, I walked through the lobby crowded with YMCA staff, senior citizens waiting for spouses, three-year-old children in coats, and firemen pulling on hazmat suits.

The gym teacher told a fireman, “Only two left in the women’s locker room.”

Kristoph leaned on the reception desk and drew a sketch for the fire chief. “The pump is here.” He circled a part of the sketch. “It’s leaking there.”

The children edged between firemen to the front door.

Their teacher pushed the door open with her backside. “Hold hands. Make a line.”

A girl grabbed the teacher’s hand. “Where’s my mommy?”

“She’s coming.” Watching her class, the teacher stepped backward out the door then led the children down the front steps.

Meadville YMCA

Grabbing the railing, a boy set both feet on each step all the way down. “Where are we going?”

The teacher must not have heard. Her head swiveled checking traffic then she led the children across Chestnut Street to the First Baptist Church.

As soon as I walked to the car, I pulled out my cell phone and tapped the Snidely Whiplash icon to speed-dial my husband.

When he answered, I coughed into the phone. “Didn’t they use chlorine gas in World War One?”

“Yes. It can kill you.” Spence’s voice changed from informative to concerned. “Why are you asking?”

Coughing, I related the saga of the stinking stench, the pool evacuation, the firemen pulling on hazmat suits, and the children’s questions.

“You could drive to the emergency room.”

“No.” I coughed. “Now that I’m in fresh air, I only cough when I talk.”

During the fifteen mile drive home, I inhaled deep, twelve-second yoga breaths from the bottom of my lungs to the top of my throat. I held the air four seconds. Thinking of the force I’d used to make the plastic balls rise in the incentive spirometer after surgery decades ago, I pushed all the air out. By the time I nosed the car into the garage, I’d expelled the stink, and, despite the bitter temperature, I craved a pint of blood orange sorbet to soothe my throat.

Snug in the log house, I rinsed my swim suit, petted the cat, and searched the Meadville Tribune’s online article about the YMCA’s evacuation. “ . . . leak of muriatic acid . . . a toxic corrosive that you don’t want to inhale . . .”

While I frowned at the don’t want to inhale, piano arpeggios played on my phone, and Snidely Whiplash’s face popped up on the screen.

Spence’s concerned voice said, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” I coughed. “I checked the Tribune. It said muriatic acid leaked at the Y.”

“That’s hydrochloric acid. It turns into hydrogen and chlorine in water.”

“The odor’s out of my lungs,” I coughed, “but my throat’s still scratchy.”

He switched to his informative voice. “Add baking soda to a drink. Baking soda will neutralize the acid.”

Baking soda didn’t sound like a great substitute for blood orange sorbet, but I boiled water, brewed honeybush manderine orange tea, and stirred in two heaping teaspoons of baking soda. I sipped. Yuck. Liquid baking soda masked the tea flavor. Nevertheless, I drank the whole cup and mentally reviewed lessons learned―the smell of muriatic acid, never smell muriatic acid, and only add one teaspoon of baking soda to tea if I inhale the stinging stench of muriatic acid.

Deer Creek