My husband suggested I take swimming lessons after watching me wipe out in the surf earlier this summer. I don't want to have to admit this, but I think he is right.

I first learned how to swim when I was five through some athletic program. I remember being the youngest in the class and the instructor spent a good portion of the time babying me and not teaching me how to swim. I spent most of my summers at the pool club. I do remember swimming a lot and not being too horrible at it.

In jr.high, swimming was a gym requirement. Every girl hated it because it meant your hair looked like shit for the rest of the day because there wasn't enough time to restyle it before class. Also, it was co-ed, neither group wanted the other to see them in their bathing suits. I was completely humilitated in one class when my bikini bottom became undone and flopped open as I was getting out of the pool. I used the "I have my period excuse" as many times as I could even though I didn't actually get my period until I was 15!

Our swimming instructor, Mrs. Mack, had been an Olympic swimmer sometime in the 1950s. There were all of these black and white photos of her with her medal in her office which was a broom closet in the girls locker room. By 1982, she was grossly obese with thick coke bottle glasses and a steel grey helmet of hair. She never got into the pool with us but preferred to bark commands from the side bench. There was a story going around that during one class, Gupta, the girl from India, fell into the deep end of the pool and started to drown. Supposedly, Mrs. Mack took a running dive into the deep end and pulled Gupta to safety. Everyone who was at that class said that even people who were in the bleachers got soaked from the impact.

I'm not really looking forward to these lessons. I'm skeeved out by most indoor pools and although I'm definitely not a strong swimmer these days, I do have some experience and am not interested in having to start from square one! But, I want to learn how to surf, so in order to keep me from either killing or hurting myself or others when doing that, I will need to just get over it and jump back in.