Wait, WHAT?!
Everybody pees in the pool?
Come on now. No way.
If you don’t know what we’re talking about, you’re lucky. You may want to just close out of this post right now in order to remain blissfully ignorant. Hold on, I’ll give you a second. Go read something fun, like Dr. NerdLove…
…
Okay so you’re still with me. See, a few days ago multiple gold-medal winner Ryan Lochte (also known as “The Guy Whose Dimples Make Women Around the World Drop Their Panties”) admitted that he pees in the pool. The Olympic pool.
US Magazine quotes Lochte’s interview with Ryan Seacrest:
“Of course,” Lochte told Seacrest. “I think there’s just something about getting into chlorine water that you just automatically go. [I didn't] during the races, but I sure did in warm-up.”
So, yeah, that’s gross. But I placated myself by repeating that he was undoubtably one of the only swimmers who does this. I assumed a fall-out would follow with Olympic swimmers saying, “Dude, that’s sick! Use the urinal like everyone else!”
But… no.
Instead, Michael Phelps, bro-extraordinaire, came to his teammate’s side. The Wall Street Journal blogs got Phelps to admit that he, too, discolors the pool water from time to time (see video above, scoot forward to about 3:00):
Fellow Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte caused a bit of a stir recently when he reportedly said that he has, on occasion, urinated while in the pool; Phelps, however, suggested that it was no big deal. “I think everybody pees in the pool,” Phelps said. “It’s kind of a normal thing to do for swimmers. When we’re in the water for two hours, we don’t really get out to pee.” He added “Chlorine kills it so it’s not bad.”
I have to tell something to Michael Phelps, and it’s important. Urine starts out sterile. It’s not the “livingness” of the urine that’s gross. It’s the urine-ness of it. And the urine-ness of it doesn’t get killed. Diluted maybe…
And lest you think this is a man-only habit, Carly Geehr stood up for team pool-pee. Newser quotes:
His views are confirmed by Carly Geehr, a former member of the US national swim team. “Nearly 100% of elite competitive swimmers pee in the pool. Regularly. Some deny it, some proudly embrace it, but everyone does,” she writes at Slate.
And so, as I always do, I turned to Facebook to ask my trusted friends their thoughts. I feel a little bad that Lochte is being publicly mocked for everything, including his poor mother saying he only has “one night stands” when she actually meant that he only takes girls out once because he can’t commit. I feel bad he’s become the poster boy for cheesedickery. He really hasn’t done anything wrong. In an Olympics where athletes are getting booted for Tweeting racist jokes, doping, and not showing up for practices, Lochte’s just being a charming young man… in a diamond grill.
I can always count on one of my best guy friends, Tim—a man I’ve known since he was born one week after me, a man whose mother bathed us together in the same kitchen sink when we were toddlers—to tell the truth. Not to mention, Tim is a competitive swimmer. Both indoor and outdoor. I expect Tim to pee when he’s swimming across the Chesapeake Bay (yes, he did that). Who cares? The crabs don’t care. But the pool?
Ugh. It’s over for me. The illusion has been shattered. The pool is full of pee, people.
Now, as I pull on my own lap suit and search everywhere for my eternally-lost goggles, I’m starting to wonder if I need a new hobby.
What do you think? Is it only Olympic and elite swimmers who pee in pools? Or am I the only one who doesn’t?
Guess what that is you’re spitting, Phelps? That’s pee!
AP photo
About Joanna Schroeder
That’s brilliant
Not just the pool though, isn’t there something to the effect that every molecule of water has been though a human being at least seven times.
That sounds made up.
But is probably true.
I didn’t realize this was really an issue… it just seems normal to me. The pool we had when I was a kid was a 35,000 gallon pool I believe. Think about how diluted your pee becomes in that amount of water and it really just breaks down into its chemical components. I’m more concerned about the chemicals that go into the water to keep the pool clean and clear. As someone who took care of the pool including dealing with the chemicals, chlorine is just the start of what goes into the water.
maybe its a baby ruth bar in the bottom. why don’t we crap in the water also then?
theres no P in my ool. lets keep it that way.
Because that’s completely different. We’re talking about a compound that is almost entirely water mixed with some other basic chemicals (urea, mostly). Poo is a solid compound filled with decaying organic waste, bacteria, and all sorts of other unsavory things. Urine, on the other hand, is safer for you than the water into which you are urinating.
Oh come on Joanna- I’m a fat white man in a suit and I heard tales several years ago, when it was in vogue (or maybe when I was still paying attention) of the mystical Vedic powers of ingesting ones own urine, I believe this was about the same time that high colonics were cool too….
Aren’t you some kind of California Cool?
So share and share alike……
Well maybe not- the dookie in the McCarren pool seems a little coarse….
I too pee in the pool, it’s whatever.
“it’s whatever”
It’s not whatever, spidaman! it’s pee in the pool!
of course everyone pees in the pool. Also everyone pees in the shower too. You would be surprised the variety of public and private place that people pee.
Shawn, does your wife know you pee in the shower!?
I’ve talked to swimmers who say they regularly pee and vomit into the pool. They try to do it into the filters but sometimes it doesn’t all go…
I don’t swim in public pools anymore.
Whales, dolphins, seals, walruses, otters–and maybe even fish–pee in the ocean. Ewwww. So much for the beach. Organic food is made of poo and dead shit. Oral sex almost always involves ingesting a certain quantity of pee. The “flora” in the human gut contains vastly more bacterial cells than the human cells in our entire bodies. Life is just plain gross.
Very funny Joanna!
Like other mammals, I too have peed in the ocean. I guess it comes down to scale: ocean good, hot tub bad, Olympic size swimming pool = grey area….
When I was in high school, I was employed as a lifeguard and swim instructor at our school pool, also a public pool. I and other classmates working there would supervise public swims which were mostly populated by elementary and junior high school-aged children. In the mid-80s, most parents would drop their children off and leave them at the pool unsupervised for hours. Inevitably, we’d quickly observe which kids were bullies. We’d occasionally take revenge upon the absolute worst bullies with this prank: One lifeguard would distract the bully by chastising for something like screaming, running and diving into the shallow end, or splashing much younger kids. With the bully distracted, another lifeguard would toss five water test tablets into the water behind the bully which quickly created a short-lived, pink cloud. The chastising lifeguard would then point to the cloud and exclaim, “AND, there’s no peeing allowed in the pool! We’ve had so many problems with kids peeing that we put a chemical in the water that turns pink when you pee!” The bully would be terribly embarrassed because EVERYBODY PEES IN THE POOL!
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“But everybody pees in the pool!”
“Yes, but not from the diving board.”
lolololol
Not everyone. Only one in Five people pee in the pool. WTF I had no idea. I always thought that peeing in the pool led to evacuations and public humiliation for the peeer who was usually a just a kid. They should make a book about all the things you never knew you could get away with.. http://www.rodale.com/pool-peeing-survey.
And there is no such thing as urine indicator dye either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urine-indicator_dye
Also peeing in pools does not cause AIDS in case anyone wanted to know.