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The Fourth of July Sucks, Pools Aren’t Baths and TikTok Is Where Your Parents Aren’t

I once thought that the pool I swam in every day was a bath. I was in it for five hours each summer day (except Saturdays) for sports, and let me tell ya, I don’t need a microbiologist to tell me that pools are, in fact, filthy. The fact that my long hair formed dreadlocks all by itself that summer could’ve told me chlorine is no substitute for soap. But that never stopped me — nor these other people — from treating the public pool like a big shower.

Y’all need Jesus. And a delousing.

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Swimming Pool ≠ Bath

Like Earth being flat or giraffes not existing, “the pool is a bath” has the perfect recipe of on-its-face logic and anecdotal evidence that leads to fights on social media.

But Dr. Dave Westenberg, an associate professor of biological sciences at Missouri University of Science and Technology — who goes by “The Germ Juggler,” natch — says the pool is not a bath. He cannot stress this enough: The pool is NOT a bath. Here’s why.