Juliette C
Google
I joined thinking it would be a sanctuary. It’s not. It’s a tired, neo-country club parked next to a chicken processing plant — an olfactory assault that should disqualify the luxury prices.
Still, I tried to make the most of it. I overlooked the worn-out facilities and the questionable poolside hygiene. But last week was it.
While sitting poolside, I ordered a chicken sandwich. A risky move, given the ever-present stench of death wafting over from the plant. My hunger won. It was my mistake.
While waiting nearly an hour for my food, the smell intensified — sour and unmistakably biological. The heat increased as did the middle-aged blonde manager's patrol of the pool like a suburban mother. The tension in my chest climbed. I was in college again, coming home to my hovering mom. I tried to distract myself. I shouldn’t have.
When the sandwich finally arrived, I was sweating. I ate fast. The taste — rubbery, pungent — mixed with the smell of rotting poultry. The hovering woman kept circling. I kept chewing. I wanted this to be okay. It wasn't. The image of gasping animals, of carcasses with dirty feathers, took hold in my mind. It was too late.
The wind picked up. I gagged. I stood. I projectile vomited the sandwich onto the pool deck. Cue screams. The poolside elite scrambled, clutching their faded luxury towels, now splattered with my regret.
I was devastated. As I sat in the bathroom, mascara and vomit running down my face, it hit me. We are all animals.
Me. The suffocating chickens. The sunburned snobs. The surveillance mom hawking around the pool. All part of the same grotesque system. Animals, just getting our needs met, no matter whose bodies we have to smell, step over, mother, or chew up.
I learned all this the hard way. I won’t be back.
Regrets, Juliette