Getting a handle on that extra 20p

MANY things shrink as you get older but one thing that doesn’t is the enthusiasm to make a point.

This is not to be confused with complaining, an altogether more sinister art. Making a point is what we old ’uns do, partly because we aren’t brilliant at anything else but mainly because we see time running out and think we might as well leave a mark while we can.

I’d resolved to make a point after my swim at the local baths about the eggy whiff I’d detected in the changing rooms. I was fairly sure this was not emanating from me but from one of the drainage channels that runs below the cubicles.

But first there was the matter of 20p, which might describe my toilet needs during a day’s Christmas shopping but in this case refers to the seven-sided coin I need when I go for a dip – or rather, two: one for the locker, the other for the scalp dryer that more fortunate souls use for drying hair.

So, I changed into swimming shorts (move swiftly on lest the vision burns your brain!) and loaded my clothes into a locker, having first checked that the handle worked so

that it wouldn’t lose my 20p. I then popped said coin into slot and found that… the handle didn’t work.

Cursing quietly, I moved all my clobber into a neighbouring locker, locked the door, and headed for the

pool, stopping briefly to tell a lifeguard about my misfortune and arranging for a refund when I came out.

I had, incidentally, left the other 20p in one of my shoes.

By the time I’d completed my regulation lengths, a new lifeguard was on duty but he handed me 20p without hesitation. I thought briefly of making the point that he might be giving it to the wrong man: for all he knew, I could be an elderly chancer.

But I said nothing and, dressed and dry of scalp, thanks to the retrieved 20p, I slipped my shoes on, felt a ridge under one foot, took off the shoe and found the 20p I’d supposedly left in the faulty locker.

Could I have come out with three 20ps, not two? No, I distinctly remembered finding a second in the shrapnel jar. Just as I distinctly remembered putting one in the faulty locker…

I pictured the lifeguard examining the locker, finding no coin in the slot but deciding to “refund” this poor old soul rather than risk an argument.

I confessed all to the lady on reception and handed her 20p. After all, I didn’t want to add to the crisis in local government finance.

She had a good old giggle and I couldn’t help thinking she’d probably not taken me seriously about the eggy whiff.

Pete is convinced there was an eggy whiff in the changing rooms and the curious case of the missing 20p.