Even in Southern California

My daughter decided to try out for water polo this year. I admire her willingness to try it, because even in Southern California, I think of swimming as a summer activity. Maybe that’s because we don’t have indoor pools in this area, and it takes some determination to get into a swimming pool in the middle of November. Sure, we still get the occasional Santa Ana to spike afternoon temperatures, but water polo practice will not take place on a sunny afternoon. It may be sunny California in the daytime, but you can still see your breath at night. By mid-winter we even get frosty mornings.

To my dismay, we had very little notice to get our hands on a suitable swimsuit for practices. Even in Southern California, swimsuits are a seasonal item. We ran around to half a dozen discount stores in hopes of finding one left on a clearance rack before giving in and realizing we’d have to face the Big Sporting Goods Store at the mall. Naturally, the Big Sporting Goods Store keeps a rack of big name brands with big sticker prices all year long.

Price tags aside, there is something to be said for a limited selection. The search for a one-piece was nothing like the battle that took place at the beginning of the summer, when I took my thirteen year old bikini shopping. She must’ve tried on about seven hundred or so. We fought bitterly over strings and cutouts and animal prints and weird sparkly embellishments. In what I believe was store number fifty-nine or so we finally found the one suit that we could agree on. One that didn’t make me think over my dead body or make her think only someone who still likes Strawberry Shortcake would want to wear this.

As we drove from store to store, the air in the car was downright chilly. It wasn’t because we were cranking the AC in the summer heat. Even in Southern California, a teenage girl sure knows how to master the cold shoulder.