Pushing people into swimming pools. Whenever I see someone falling into a swimming pool on telly or in a film it makes me feel like I’ve lived an incomplete life. How magnificent to be party to such a moment of unplanned classic comedy. Obviously it’s best to be the one doing the pushing, accidentally or (better) deliberately. I’m not so excited by the idea of being shoved unceremoniously into a vast container of cold water, then laughed at for ages by a load of strangers as someone plays a few comedy notes on a saxophone. It all makes you wonder how people made comedy films before Norman Wisdom, doesn’t it?
When I was about ten years old my friends and I used to wash my Dad’s car on the front drive. We used a hosepipe, which I remember my ten-year-old self finding really exciting for some reason, and whenever we got a bit bored, we’d aim slightly too high, or slightly too far to the left or right, ‘accidentally’ aiming the high pressure hose at a passing car. Only once was the window open, the victim an elderly lady being taken to hospital by her middle-aged daughter. And yes, the driver pulled over and gave us a talking to. She was a nasty old cow – what kind of (damp, angry) woman bellows at a (smirking, but undeniably red-faced) 10-year-old outside their own home? But it didn’t dampen (sorry) my need to soak unsuspecting strangers. If anything, it was the awakening of this oddly specific desire.
If I ever see that woman again (and I have remembered her number-plate) (from 18 years ago) and she’s standing near enough to a swimming pool, I’m going to push her right in. And her mother too. I’m going to laugh as they go in, the first one will be funny, the second hilarious – because people won’t expect my to push the granny in as well. Onlookers will watch in amazement as they see the idea cross my face. Nobody could be that cruel, they’ll think, as the old woman bends over the pool to check on her daughter, (drenched by me for the second time in twenty years). She’ll pause to fire abuse at me over her hunched, floral shoulder, then turn back to the younger, wetter woman bobbing in the water. I might apologise. Lay a supportive hand on that rheumatic back. And when I’m completely sure she’s least expecting it, that’s when I’ll kick away her stick.
