I Can Barely Take Care of Myself

The moms sat in their lounge chairs, slathering on their lotion. Mom no. 1 yelled toward the pool in that loud voice that moms are forced to use to be heard above screaming kids.

“Hey, Jessica, come here. Let me put some more sunblock on you! Yes. Yes, you do need more sunblock. It’s high noon. Jessica! Come here right now. You can get right back in!”

Why didn’t Jessica’s mom walk over to the pool and talk, in a normal voice, to her child, who shouldn’t even have been in the adult pool to begin with? How would I know? I’ve never had a kid. I don’t understand why it’s fun to spend a vacation screaming into the ears of your innocent children on a warm Maui afternoon—especially when you end up screaming into the ear of an innocent childfree woman who is just trying to pretend to read her InStyle magazine’s greatest haircuts edition as she secretly eavesdrops on other cabana conversations.

Then Mom no. 2 yelled to her daughter, who was even farther away than little Jessica. “Ashley, do you want me to get you one of those rubber tubes? Which one do you want? Huh?! Which one?! No, which one? The inner tube that you sit in and not the foam roller? Okay. Okay.”

Ashley’s mom walked past Sarah and me on her way to the kids’ pool to rent a toy for her kid, to bring back for her to play with in the forbidden adult pool.

As she passed us, I said loudly, “It’s not very quiet here today. These cabanas were expensive. It would be nice to have some quiet.”

In her best loud-on-purpose voice, Sarah said, “I know. This is the adult pool, right? Kids aren’t allowed?”

That was the extent of our confrontation with Ashley’s mom—a hopefully-she-heard-us level of passive- aggressive commentary. She returned with an inner tube and Jessica and Ashley climbed in, got comfortable, and floated around in the adult pool, which continued to be populated with nonadults. I felt like I was at a strip club with my family—these things just don’t go together.

After a lunchtime margarita, we got a little more confident. Before she could walk away, Sarah said to our waitress, “Um, so, kids aren’t allowed in this pool, right? This is the adult pool?”

The waitress agreed. “Yes. This is the adult pool.”

Sarah, in her best yeah-I-know-I’m-being-a-C-word voice, asked, “Sooooo, what’s that?” pointing at our new nemeses Jessica and Ashley.

The waitress turned and noticed the girls. “Oh,” she said. “I don’t know.”

I added, “And I think those boys in the hot tub are definitely under eighteen.” I immediately felt bad for tattling on anyone so I made a joke. “I mean, I’m so bad with guessing ages. They could be thirty for all I know and just really skinny.”

The waitress smiled and said, “Well, yeah. This is the adult pool.” And with that she turned on her heel to leave.

I summoned all of my courage. “Oh, ma’am? Um, can you come back for a second? Um, is there someone we can talk to about this? I mean, they’re not doing anything wrong, but it is the adult pool and we don’t care if they’re here in general but there is a sign that says no one under eighteen can be here. I mean, it’s not my rule. It’s yours.”

The waitress said, “I’ll get a manager.”

As she walked away, Sarah high-fived me. “Best passive-aggressive comment of all time. ‘It’s not my rule. It’s yours.’ Yes!”

I started to get excited because I noticed a young couple sitting on the edge of the pool, listening to our conversation. I assumed that they also wanted to go into the pool but couldn’t because of Ashley, Jessica, and the rest of the Inner Tube Gang. I made eye contact with them as I said to Sarah, “I mean, at least the manager is on the way, because we have to say something. These kids shouldn’t be in the adult pool!” I think I expected the young couple to stand up and applaud like congresspeople approving my presidential declaration about the state of the adult pool. They looked away from me and started whispering and giggling in each other’s ears. I wanted to yell at them, “Oh, fine. Make fun of me. But I’m fighting for all of our rights! Even if you honeymooners change your mind and have kids later in life—right now this is our time by the Hibiscus Pool!”

A manager who looked like he was too young to be allowed in the adult pool himself approached us. He said, “What’s going on? Are the kids bothering you guys?”

“Well, no…,” Sarah said. “Not exactly.”

“They’re really well behaved,” I said, trying to sound very maternal. “But it’s just that this is the adult pool and technically they shouldn’t be here. We paid extra money for these cabanas in the quiet area and it’s not very quiet.”

A toddler ran by with her wet feet slapping against the concrete. One slip and her head would split open like a dropped coconut. I gripped my lounge chair, feeling helpless, and blurted out, “Oh my God. Be careful. Be careful, honey.” I turned to the teenage manager. “See?” I pleaded. “I can’t handle this.”

He said, “Okay. I’ll talk to someone about it,” and scurried away, passing the hot tub full of leering boys without saying a word.

Our cabana quickly became Child Watch Headquarters. Sarah and I grabbed our laptops and took advantage of the free WiFi connection. We got to work. I took to Twitter and started tweeting to the Grand Wailea hotel, asking them, “What’s your policy on kids who crash the adult pool? We have a situation here.” Sarah got the general manager’s information off the Grand Wailea website. She picked up her BlackBerry, made a call, and left a very stern message with the general manager’s assistant.

“What did she say?” I asked.

“She said that he’d call me back later today. She wouldn’t take down my cell phone number. She said he could just call me back in the room.”

The general manager would return a customer’s complaint call to her room? Who sits in her room in the middle of the day when she’s on vacation in sunny Maui? You know who should be sitting in their room in the middle of the day—parents and their toddlers. Those kids need a nap.

I’d had enough bullshit. I was going to take a bullet for my partner in Child Watch crime. “You wait here, Sarah. I’m going in and there’s no need for you to see this.” I put on my sandals and angrily flip-flopped off toward the check-in desk to confront the person who had handed me two plush towels that morning.

The towel girl was suspiciously nice and she said that she’d call security for me. Okay. Now we were getting somewhere. Security. I went back to the cabana and Sarah and I watched and waited for security. I was ready for plastic handcuffs to be slapped on some toddlers and their rule-breaking moms. While we were waiting we spotted a heavy preteen girl whose boobs had not grown as round as her thighs and stomach just yet. She seemed awkward and unhappy. She held her tired-looking mom’s hand as they walked around the adults- only pool, looking for lounge chairs. Sarah and I shared a look.

“She can stay,” I said.

“Yeah,” Sarah agreed. “She’d probably get bullied by some assholes at the kids’ pool. Who knows what she may have already been through.”

“Yeah,” I said, “she’s obviously got some weird enmeshment shit going on with her mom too. They can’t be apart and this girl seems like an old soul.”

Just then a towering, broad-shouldered black man in uniform rounded the corner. Here he was. Security. Tiny heads are gonna roll. Then the towering, broad-shouldered black man in uniform walked right by the boys in the hot tub, strolled past the preteen girls in the pool, and darted around the toddlers running on the pool’s edge. We watched him walk off into the bright sun back toward the hotel. Sarah was speechless, so I can’t really capture her reaction in print. It was a series of guttural sounds and wild hand gestures, like someone trying to make a w sound for the first time. “Don’t worry, partner,” I told her. “I’m going back out there.”

I got up and ran after the security guard, this time barefoot, hopping and saying, “Ouch, hot, ouch,” with every step. “Hey, security guy. What was that out there? You’re just going to walk by?” He said, “I think they got the message.” “What message? That security means nothing? That if they keep wading in the adult pool, security might… walk by again? Ooooh, scary. You have to actually say something to the kids, like, ‘Hi, you kids don’t look like you’re old enough to be here. You must leave this pool if you