I had always avoided crowds and public spaces. Those had me in a state of panic. I went to the occasional bar but that was about it. Nothing too public, nothing too crowded and certainly nothing too dirty.

I still can’t explain myself for that time was different and how I got to be in such a situation. A public pool. Me! How? you might ask. I’m asking the same thing over and over.

I still can’t figure out the why or how but there I B was, in the most horrible bathing suit available at the shop, gasping in horror at the filth and the cries and the noise and the crowd. Disgusting. Positively nightmarish.

If I went in the water? Of course not! Who do you take me for?