I walk into the dressing room alone. It’s 9:30 pm, time for my after-work swimming. As I take off my pullover and am about to toss it into my backpack, Coach Nadja holds me back. “Let me fold that for you!”, she folds it neatly into a square, as I get into my swimsuit.

“Ready?”, she is overly motivated, clapping her hands excitedly. I put my belongings into my locker. Just as I’m about to shut it close Lazy Nadja escapes through the nearly closed door. She casually leans against the lockers: “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be on your couch?”

Coach grabs my shoulders and pushes me towards the showers, thus preventing me from agreeing with Lazy.

While the hot water runs over my body Lazy gives me a backrub. Suddenly Coach turns off the hot water, the icy water stings like needles. I scream. “Oh, come on! Give this poor woman a break! She has worked all day long! Let her enjoy a steaming hot shower and then go to bed!”-“Pah!”, Coach is outraged, “5€ for a pee-warm shower in a public place? Not while I’m in charge!” She grabs Lazy and me by our ears and pulls us into the pool.

The water’s so cold! And there are quite a lot of people here, despite the lateness of the day.

Coach stands beside the pool, blowing into her whistle and gesturing wildly. Alright, let’s do this. I begin to swim, Lazy is in the water next to me on her back, gliding through it, stroking lasciviously. “Ah! Look at you! You might be the next Phelps!” I splash water in her face, but she just smiles at me. “Nice try!”

A lady swims the opposite direction, wearing one of these fancy swim caps and goggles she looks like a professional. “God, look at her. I bet her swimsuit squeezes her butt cheeks like the goggles squeeze her jowl!” I bet she was the best swimmer on her team when she was 17. But now she’s 50 and tries to fit into the same apparel.

Coach screams at me: “Stop staring at other people’s bottoms! Swim!” “Good lord, what a drag she is!” Lazy dives down to sit at the bottom of the pool and observe everything from below. I can only hear Coach’s yelling.

I really don’t want to be here and I really don’t want to finish this lap. I could get out of the pool now, at this precise moment and nobody would care. But for some reason I keep going, maybe because I don’t want to disappoint coach. Lazy is busy checking out peoples’ swim styles. “Is that lady walking underwater or swimming. I can’t tell, she so slow!” Hah! Look at that man backstroking. His big fat belly sticks out of the water like one of these inflatable floating rubber islands. One could probably find Robinson Crusoe and Friday in the jungle that’s going on top. I begin to make up stories for each one of the swimmers. Peter is a successful manager, but he’s had troubles at home lately. He swims fiercely and determined as if a shark was following him. His wife’s over there in the cute Bikini with Polka dots. She thought this would be a nice get-away with her husband, but now Peter is just swims one lap after the other while she slowly paddles her way through the water. She shoots him angry glances.

I don’t exactly fly through the pool, but I get my laps done, with Coach cheers for me beside the pool and Lazy suggests whom to defame next.

I finally get out of the swimming pool, Coach pulls and Lazy pushes me up. I stand by the pool alone and walk towards the showers contently.

Lazy and Coach are parts of me. Not parts I am particularly fond of, but they’re there and we get along. When I am swimming I really need them, because it costs me quite an effort to sink into the pool instead of the sofa after work.

But once I’m there, the swimming pool is my anarchic zone. I don’t have to keep myself together here. I can split up in as many Nadjas as I want to, I can judge and pigeonhole people (it’s great, try it once in a while!), I can rid myself from the worries of the day and the weight resting on my shoulders feels so much lighter in the water (That’s 6^th grade physics). And apart from that: sitting on my couch after sitting in the office the whole day is NOT WAHT I WANT FOR MYSELF!

My goal’s to be happy and healthy, even if it takes baring two naggers like Coach and Lazy for a night a week. I’d never admit it to them, but I secretly like them.