Babel

Genesis 11:7: "Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

We spent the first night of our journey at the Holiday Inn in Marquette, MI (upper peninsula). The picture is a slightly obscured view of Munising Falls, also in the U.P. The hotel was nice enough, and we got a four-for-one breakfast deal because the kids eat free and they were running a two-for-one special.

Sarah and Nathan love to swim, so they hit the swimming pool as soon as they could after we arrived. That's where the entertainment began. A well-toned guy was swimming laps peacefully in one "lane" of the pool. We'll call him "Lapper." A little bit later, a number of heavyset girls in their teens and twenties took up residence at one end of the pool, right in Lapper's lane. Lapper kept on lapping, flapping his feet with a splash at each turn - one of which was now right in the midst of these girls. Rather than asking them to move, Lapper kept on lapping right into their laps, so to speak. The girls made no effort to communicate either, choosing instead to giggle and then kick at Lapper when he made his turn in what they had now annexed as their area of the pool. Lapper stopped and yelled at the girls to stop kicking him, then returned to lapping. This infuriated one of the girls, who climbed out of the pool to call in some reinforcements from her cell phone. Soon what appeared to be "daddy" showed up. We'll call him "Zubaz," as he appeared in neon orange zubaz (if you don't know what these are, do an image search) pajama pants and a white tank-style undershirt. He could've been a long-since-retired WWF wrestler, but it would've had to have been long enough ago that he could attain a complete state of being out of shape. Zubaz starts yelling at Lapper, who can't hear him because he's underwater most of the time between breaths. Another couple suggests that Lapper is just trying to get his exercise in, but Zubaz discovers a pool noodle and starts slapping the water around Lapper, who is continuing his lapping. This works almost as well as the yelling, so he grabs the wooden lifesaver off the wall and looks as though he's going to bounce that off of Lapper, likely inflicting an injury of some sort, but then a hotel employee shows up and listens to his case as Lapper keeps on lapping. The employee agrees with the couple, that Lapper deserves his space. Zubaz tells the employee that he doesn't want Lapper "touching those girls," before he finally gets Lapper's attention and tosses out a number of f-bomb laden threats that Lapper tosses aside before diving back into his routine. Finally, the hotel employee suggests to Lapper that he move to the other side. He does. All is well. The laps resume, the giggling resumes, and Zubaz heads back to his room. About 30 minutes later, when Lapper finishes his routine, he climbs out of the pool. The whole room goes dead silent as Lapper towels off, heads to the door, and wishes the Zubaz family a good night. Exit Lapper. Giggles return. The girl with the cell phone climbs back into the pool, phone-in-hand. End of episode.

"What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach, so you get what we had here last week which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. And I don't like it any more than you men." Cool Hand Luke