Nachos

Nachos.

Anyone who has ever been to an indoor swim meet knows that this is a terrible place to spend your weekend.  The air is stuffy, the stands are crowded and you wait around endlessly for a one minute race and then you wait some more.  Like most swimmers, I’ve been going to these meets my whole life and have come to accept the monotonous long days.  For parents, I’m sure this is some kind of torture, for a coach, swim meets are a little more bearable and as a swimmer you have nachos.

I love swim meet nachos.  To me, there is nothing quite like the plastic serving tray filled with chips and the side compartment of gooey nacho cheese.  Sure, these nachos can be found at just about any sporting event, but for me, I can’t look at that nacho tray without thinking of childhood trips to the snack bar in between races.  I used to try to manage my chips to cheese ratio so that one would not run out before the other.  In those days, there was nothing worse than left over chips and no more cheese or extra cheese with no chips left for dipping.

As I watched the kids at our meet over the weekend, the coach in me wanted to tell them to put them to put the nachos down and to go get a fruit cup.  But, this is just one thing I cannot be hypocritical about.  When I look back to the hours I spent at the pool and at meets as a kid, it all kind of blends together and I’m sure it will be that way for these kids too.  But I do remember that at every meet, I got nachos.  It was my right of passage and a reward for spending another whole weekend at the pool.  Maybe it won’t be the nachos, but I hope that when these kids get older they will have that one thing that reminds them of all the hours they logged at the pool and this will be as happy of a memory for them as the nachos are for me.