Average

"He had a 300 average," said the boy in the hot tub.

"That's impossible," said the man. "That means he bowled a perfect game every time he ever bowled, and no one can do that."

"What if he only ever bowled one game?" said the boy.

"Well, yes," said the man. "Technically, if someone only ever bowled one game, and in that first game scored a perfect 300, they could have a 300 average. But I doubt that ever happened."

"Maybe it happened," said the boy.

"Doubt it," said the Dad. "I don't think so. Doubt it."

But I was thinking that in all the first games ever bowled, it probably had happened, once or twice, in some sad bowling alley in some even sadder town, but I didn't say that to the man or the boy, because he was the one with the kid, and I was traveling alone, so who was I to tell him anything?

I moved from the hot tub to the cool pool, and I went up and down in the water, making the sounds go close and faraway and close again. I squinted my eyes in the sunlight, which was coming through the big windows of the Holiday Inn, and lighting up the kids and their parents, who were all much younger than me.

"I'm walking on water!" shouted a boy to his friend, as he stepped over the edge of the deck and splashed into the pool.

Then his friend splashed into the pool and made an even bigger splash, because he was fatter. All of the kids were more or less fat, in their own particular ways.

Some had rolling gobs of fat instead of stomachs, and those were the obvious ones. Others had round and bulbous, vaguely distended stomachs and chubby cheeks, but skinny legs and pencil arms, so it was hard to say if they were fat or not, and you could imagine things going either way for them.

It's sad to see fat kids, as it's sad to see anyone who's been handed a tragedy they didn't create, can't sense, and will probably never get out of.

But somehow it's sadder with kids.