Entitled Karen Bans Me From Public Pool.. I’m a Disabled Man in a Wheelchair!

A few people walked up to me afterwards to check if I was doing okay and to tell me how ridiculous they thought her behavior was. "I cannot believe she said that stuff about veterans," one guy told me. "My uncle served for 20 years, that's just wrong."

I stayed at the pool for another hour after that, finished my exercises and honestly felt pretty good about how things had turned out. That evening I got a message from one of the people who had been at the pool that day. She said she posted a short clip of the confrontation online and specifically the part where the woman claimed to own the pool and said that veterans shouldn't be allowed in public spaces.

Somehow people in the local community figured out who she was pretty quickly. I don't know exactly how, maybe someone recognized her from the video or maybe someone at the pool told others, but then a few days it seemed like the neighborhood knew about what happened. I started hearing from multiple people that she was getting recognized in public and getting comments from strangers about the video.

A neighbor of mine told me that she saw the woman at the grocery store a few days after the video went viral and apparently another customer recognized her and loudly said something like, "Oh, you're the pool lady, right? The one who hates veterans?" in front of a bunch of other shoppers. According to my neighbor, the woman practically ran out of the store without finishing her shopping.

The pool's management wanting to distance themselves from the controversy released a short statement clarifying that the pool is fully public funded by the city and open to all residents regardless of background and that no individual member has any authority over admission decisions. They also mentioned that any complaints related to discriminatory behavior would be taken seriously and could result in membership suspension or termination.

A week or so after the incident, I actually got a call from the pool's manager letting me know that the woman's membership had been formally suspended pending a review by the community board that oversees the facility.

Apparently, this was not the first complaint against her, just the first one that actually had video evidence and multiple witnesses backing it up. There had been previous complaints about her trying to tell other members what to do, criticizing people's swimwear, and generally acting like she had some kind of authority she never actually had.

The manager told me that with this new evidence, especially given how public and well-documented it was, the board decided to permanently revoke her membership. She would no longer be allowed to use the facility at all.

And yeah, ripe starts the fact that she tried to play the "I'm a pacifist" card while actively trying to summon armed police officers to physically remove a disabled person from a swimming pool is just a level of mental gymnastics that should be studied by scientists or something, if you ask me. And yeah, the lack of self-awareness is genuinely staggering for me.

And the user in the Reddit comment said, "Coming this summer to a municipal pool near you, one woman, one clipboard, and zero actual authority. Watch as she takes on her greatest nemesis yet, a guy just minding his own business in a wheelchair. See the dramatic climax where she calls the police to report a high level of threat of a peaceful floating." Critics are calling it the most embarrassing display of suburban panic of the year.

And another Reddit user said, "My sister lives in that area, and she said that the pool lady has been trying to run that place like her personal country club for years already. Apparently, she once tried to ban a kid for swearing uh for wearing neon swim trunks because it disrupted her meditation. The fact that it took a disabled marine and two police officers to finally get her banned is just amazing. She really thought she was the HOA president of the public water. That is not how it goes."

And the next one is another malicious compliance story, which is titled "The Pool and the Game."

So, for context, I once worked front desk at a public pool. It was horrible, but one interaction stands out for me both for how malicious my compliance was and for the fallout. Our swim team had just launched, and parents came to sign their kids up for every single thing they could because it meant after-school activities and freedom. Yay!

My responsibility was the form. First, I had to help design the form because the design the city gave us, made by a woman who was making more than minimum wage as a pool desk caddy, was not enough for my boss, and my dumb ass let her know I could make Emma's words sit up and do tricks for e-cookies.

Once the form was approved, and by then I was taking proofs home to burn as catharsis, my job was to make sure that every single parent had signed the form and paid their fee. Enter Daddy T. His daughter was on the swim team, and he had this charismatic grin and confident way of speaking that immediately put my alarm bells into danger Will Robinson. He was a little too smiley, a little too happy, and vaguely familiar.

There was just something kind of off about him. I was not sure what it was, but it made me want to be as far under his radar as possible. Unfortunately, while his kid was signed up for the swim team, he still needed to sign the form and pay for her entry, which meant that I needed to interact with him.