What's that SMELL?

I will never forget sitting in math class first thing in the morning, one day in Grade 10 (so I was 15). Class hasn't started yet and I overhear a "cool" girl complaining that she smells something funny. She's looking around, sniffing and turning up her nose. I sheepishly offer that it is probably me, that I had swimming that morning. Ew, didn't you shower? she asked. Yes, I showered, washed and conditioned my hair, put on lotion and deodorant. And, yes, I still reek like chlorine. God, she exclaimed, I'm so glad I don't swim.

We all have that story. I also remember one of my older teammates complaining about how at a school dance, the cute guy she was dancing with asked what that smell was. Or having friends over and all they can smell in your room is chlorine. This is one of the many reasons swimmers tend to stick together; we're the only ones who can stand the smell. It's also how all swimmers find each other without saying a word; we can sniff each other out.

Pool chemicals are way less corrosive and stinky then when I first started swimming. But forever, the only way to ensure that the pool was safe for swimming was to dump a ton or six of chlorine in it. It ate our suits (see this post), it bleached our hair, it dissolved our skin and the smell stuck to us like permanent marker. The smell was the stain that we couldn't get out, the thing that always marked us as swimmers. At one point there was even a theory that swimmers had worse teeth than the rest of the population because the chlorine ate away at our tooth enamel.

We were in athletically the best shape you could be, but our immediate physical appearance was nothing short of repulsive. Picture it, if you will, a teen with overly-broad shoulder, hair whose color and consistency resembles straw, skin that is visibly flaking off of all exposed areas, and a smell that precedes the person's appearance and lingers once they're gone. And possibly bad teeth. It's a miracle I ever dated at all (more on that later).

Many swimmers deal with this reality by giving up on making any effort at all in their appearance outside of the pool. Why bother? You're fighting an uphill battle and in practically no time at all, you'll be back in the pool again, negating any and all progress you may have made. I would make the joke that at least I was cleaner than clear; I was sterile. There's no way anything, good or bad, could survive on my body long enough to be transmitted to anyone who ever got close to me. Again, why did anyone date me while I was a swimmer?

I felt especially bad for my friends who were swimmers and still had acne (it was more common than you would think). They were often put on a medication called Accutane by well-meaning doctors. This was a particularly nasty drug for swimmers. It made your liver act strange and limited the natural oil produced by your skin. So, these swimmers had the chlorine and a powerful anti-acne medication attacking their skin, leaving it in a pile on your desk in math class. But there we were anyway, every morning and every night, in the chlorine bath for hours at a time. Willingly. Hell, we paid to do it.

And then something weird happens. You stop swimming and you find that you miss the smell of chlorine. You can sniff out the pool at hotels and sports clubs, and all of a sudden find yourself standing beside it. The air is heavy and humid, and it hugs you like a long-lost friend. You go swimming and when you take a shower later, your bathroom fills up with chlorine fumes, and you relax for some reason. I've started swimming again, and I crawl into bed loving that I smell like pool again. I can't believe it, but like any cherished memory from the past, smell is a powerful trigger. It might be disgusting, but it's a disgusting that I love and (gulp) miss when I'm away from it for too long.