Worst Bathing Suit Ever

Yeah, a hotel/spa. Quite lovely – I took a picture of my room, which I almost never do, but they did a really lovely job creating an atmosphere.

The hotel also had all sorts of lovely thermal pools, which I wanted to try out. So I strolled on over there. The problem was that I failed to bring a swimsuit on this trip. I asked at the desk if they had anything, and indeed they did. A “disposable” bathing suit, for the low, low price of $20. The problem, however, was that they only had a large which, conveniently, I’m not. I tried it on and it more or less covered everything it had to cover, so I bought the damn thing.

At which point, I stepped into the shower for a quick hose-down before going into the pools. It was at this point that I was reminded – in fairly embarassing style – that swimsuits stretch when wet. When I turned off the water in the shower, the crotch of the swimsuit was about two inches below my actual crotch, and water continued to pour out the sides. This did not bode well, but I’d ponied up for this damn thing just so I could get in the thermal pools, and I was going to get in those pools, dammit.

The pools were numbered 1 – 4, each one apparently having a different temperature and mineral content. Pool 3 was the closest, so I jumped in there. It was sort of lukewarm, and I was hoping for hot. I figured pool 4 would be warmer, so I hopped out of 3 and ran to 4, water pouring out the crotch of the damn swimsuit. 4 was icy cold; the heat must go in the other direction, so I aimed toward pool 1. On the way, I wrapped a towel around myself, so nobody would see me in this wretched swimsuit. Dropped the towel by the side of pool 1 and jumped in. Warmest of the bunch. I moved more toward the center of the pool.

I did mention mineral content, right? I’m guessing the mineral in this thing was sodium, because, after a few minutes in there, all of a sudden, every cut I ever had started to sting. I thought perhaps this would go away in time, but it did not. I got the hell out of the pool, wrapped myself in the towel again, and proceeded to run like hell – well, as much as anyone can run in a swimsuit with the crotch threatening to drop down to one’s knees – back into the showers. Because the salt was still stinging. Finally hosed the offending minerals off.

The following morning, when I checked out of the hotel, I discovered that they had not, in fact, charged me the $20 for the swimsuit. Normally I’m all honest and would point something like this out. As the swimsuit (and the thermal pools) had turned out to be such a disaster, though, I decided to just let that one go. Hell, maybe the people manning the pools decided to take pity on me and not submit the charge.