Swimming lessons, the reveal

No, that's not his grave. We didn't kill him. Instead, we went to Boston.

Pam was a travel agent, and she was always getting free trips from airlines and hotels, who hoped she would see how wonderful they were and eagerly sell their services. Sometimes she could take someone with her, for free. So practically on the spur of the moment, we decided to skip our swimming lesson the next Saturday and, instead, go to Boston.

We packed a change of underwear and some good walking shoes and headed to the airport. We were staying at the Ritz, across from Boston Common.  Right around the time when we should have been jellyfish-floating across the Duluth YMCA pool, we were heading on foot down the Freedom Trail.

We looked at the swan boats. We shopped at Faneuil Hall. We ate Italian food in the North End. We went to the Old Granary Burying Ground. We became instant Boston experts. 

Our last day, we both woke up sick. I was feeling lousy, but Pam was so ill she couldn't get out of bed. So I picked up the phone and called room service, and after not too long a time a tuxedoed waiter appeared at our door with a rolling cart. He lifted up the silver lid to reveal our meal: soda crackers, Seven-Up, and hot tea.

As it turned out, I was sick because I was starting to get a migraine, which I used to get fairly often. But Pam, as she finally confessed on her second or third trip back from the bathroom, was sick because she was newly pregnant. We spent the morning lying in our beds, side by side, talking, punctuated by sudden dashes to the bathroom so that Pam could throw up.

In early afternoon, we pulled ourselves together, staggered down to the lobby, hailed a cab, and flew home.

And that was it for our swimming lessons. After skipping one, it was easy to just skip all the rest.

And so we did. And so I never learned how to swim.