Luxury

The reviews had omitted a few details. In Tbilisi, it’s easier to get a new phone number than to gain admission to a swimming pool. Maybe it’s because you can get SIM cards on every corner, and there are only two 50m indoor pools.

The temperature scanner in the entrance looks like a mini MRI tube. I put my hand in, the blue LEDs pulse a few times and it beeps. The gentleman at the counter looks up. “I’d like a single entry to the pool, just for swimming”. He asks for my ID. After a while he asks me to take off my mask, and after taking a picture he tells me: “Now we need a medical test”.

This comes unexpectedly.

He points to the door at the end of the right hallway. I gulp and brace myself for X-ray machines and medical devices as I dangle toward the door. My morning’s talked-in motivation for swimming collapses. The gentleman at the register seems to notice and he waves encouragement at me and gestures I shall knock on the door and enter.

I enter the small office and find an elderly lady leaning on a wooden chair and studying Youtube videos. Obviously, I had disturbed her in her boredom, as she does not return my greeting, instead she sullenly and wordlessly instructs me to take a seat on the cot. She signals to take off my right shoe and sock, and immediately curls up over my foot. While she meticulously inspects each of my toes the pencil in her hand traces her gaze in the air… slowly.

I am scared.

I had injured one of my toes, probably a blister from walking around so much the first few days. She straightens up in her chair, takes the form and swings a big “Z” all over the top half of the form. The masked woman says NO, I think and mentally I am already waving goodbye and farewell to the swimming pool. But to my surprise, she signals she wants to see the other foot. This time there’s no Z. That’s it.

She sends me out and growls something to the colleague at the cash register. He types something in the computer and says: “That’ll be 60 Lari”.
I was ready for that. I hand him the money with relief, even if 60 Lari could buy me a Latte Macchiato at my favorite café for an entire week.

It’s worth every Tetri.