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When you watch the commercials on television advertising swimming pools, you see happy families whiling away their leisure time, surrounded by friends and loved ones.  The kids are carefree as they splash and caper, Mom is tanned and relaxed as she lounges in her lawn chair with her magazine and a glass of iced tea, and Dad—the founder of the feast—is beaming as he watches from behind the barbecue grill.  I can hear you pool owners out there rolling your eyes right now.  You know that this happy scene is just the tip of the iceberg, that 90% of the pool ownership experience is lurking below the surface.  For those of you who are beginning to succumb to this propaganda, allow me to give you the rest of the story.

My wife and I never even wanted a swimming pool, which just goes to show what can happen when you don’t take a look out behind the house before you buy it.  If I live to be one hundred, I will never forget the Moving Day of Infamy.

“Dear!” my wife called from the kitchen.  “Could you step in here a moment?”  There was a tone in her voice that I could not identify.  When I arrived at her side, she silently pointed out the back door.  There it was, a rectangular concrete demon in my new back yard.  It had a torn liner, and either a vandal or a militant panda had written BEAR RULES in black spray paint on the wall of the deep end.

“Remember when I asked if you had checked the yard?” she queried.

“Oh, you meant that yard.” I replied.  It was an honest mistake.

Once you own a pool, you need to abandon the concept of leisure time and get used to the fact that the pool actually owns you.  It feeds on your money and your time—sort of like children, but wetter—and it wants you to begin tending it long before swim season begins.  The pool year starts in April with the “opening.”  This is when you drag back the pool cover and see what has happened under it since last September.  If you don’t believe in evolution before you remove the cover, you will after.  It is not a pretty sight, and the only effect that those $125.00 winterizing kits seem to have is to make the pool mad.  It is at this point in the operation that you must pause to look for things that are alive, because you are about to put a large quantity of chlorine into the water.  I skipped this step one year because I was in a hurry.  The phone calls began the next day.

“Your boys are down here trying to sell me some frogs,” my neighbor said.

“Well, boys will be boys,” I replied.  The entrepreneurial spirit that made this country great was alive and well.

“The frogs are white,” she continued.

“Ah.”

Once you remove the fauna, it is time to shock the water.  To do this, you must buy powdered chlorine to scatter into the pool.  It is called shock because of its effect upon pool owners when they get to the cash register.  There are two schools of thought about how much shock is enough.  You can play it safe and read the backs of the chlorine bags, which will tell you all about ph’s and ppm’s and chemical interactions and the like.  Then, once you have mastered the theory of water purification, you can proceed slowly and carefully, adding a bit of chlorine at a time between tests, until you have gently coaxed the water to its ultimate purity.  Unfortunately, it will be October by then, and if you let the children swim that late in the year, they will catch a cold.

Or you can do what I do and just keep loading the pool with shock until random birds flying over it drop dead from the fumes.  Once you hear that bird plop into the water, the pool will clear up by the next morning.  But be sure to wait at least three days before you let the kids get in, unless you have always wanted blonde children.

Once you have opened the pool, you should be aware that your children’s popularity will increase exponentially.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I never minded when the kids’ friends came over, but even a good thing can get out of hand.  I am reminded of one summer day when my youngsters were frolicking and splashing with a few close comrades.  About thirty of them.  It was getting close to mid-day, so my wife and I were making lunch for the crowd in the pool.  I had spread out two full loaves of Colonial bread like playing cards, and my wife was coming behind me with a boat paddle loaded with peanut butter.  Just then the doorbell rang, and I went to answer.  We had two more visitors.

“How can I help you boys?” I asked the smaller of the two.  He was about six feet tall and had a tattoo on his arm that said Skeeter.

“Yeah, Man, like, we’re here to play with your kids in the pool,” he replied.  His partner, Rifle, nodded as he put out his cigarette in the coffee can I had labeled “Chlorine Fund” and placed on the porch.  I could see their Harleys parked in my neighbor’s flower bed.  My children were nine, eight, six, and three that year, but I let the new arrivals stay, because it was really hot that day, and because Rifle was able to come up with one of my youngster’s names on the third try.  But the episode taught me to check the guest list more closely.  Incidentally, no matter how many kids show up to swim, make sure that the same number leaves when the party is over.  We once had an extra little girl for three days.  She was polite, she finished all of her vegetables, and she knew how to program the VCR.  When her mother finally showed up for her, I sort of hated to see her go.

Sometimes despite your best efforts, your pool will be beset by algae.  Regardless of what you may have heard, it is not true that dropping a one-hundred-dollar bill into a pool with an algae bloom will clear the water.  In actual fact, it takes two of them—one in the deep end and one in the shallow end.  The pool will take a credit card for this, incidentally, but you must add 4% for the processing fee.  Please be aware, however, that if your pool is infested by the evil growth known as mustard algae, then there is nothing you can do short of napalming the pool or moving.  If you decide to try napalm, you will have to contact the fire department for a burn permit, and pool etiquette dictates that as a courtesy you should notify your neighbors on the day of the air strike.

Now you have a full set of facts, and you see that pool ownership is not all peaches and cream.  If you are still tempted to be a pool owner, try to hold this domestic scene in your mind.  Every kid you know and some that you don’t are sort of happy and semi-carefree as they holler, fight, snap towels, and run on the wet concrete.  Mom is pale and drawn as she marches children to the bathroom, fetches towels, applies band-aids, and performs lifeguard duty.  And Dad—the founder of the feast—is beaming as he works his second job down at the convenience store so he can pay the water bill and make the chemical payments.  It’s enough to make you go off the deep end.

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4 Responses to “Trouble: It Starts With P and It Ends With L”

1. lisaul says:

   July 30, 2009 at 10:47 am

   There are more modern ways to sanitize your pool besides chlorine. Copper, Saline and Ozone are a few.

   Reply
2. john schulz says:

   July 30, 2009 at 1:10 pm

   Thanks, Ray
   Now I understand.
   I went to a fancy restaurant one time and treated my date to some very rare and expensive “albino frog legs.” Where, exactly, did your boys end up selling them frogs?

   Reply
3. Meg Gerrish says:

   July 31, 2009 at 11:29 am

   I had no idea what my husband was doing in the backyard. Now that I understand, I’ll be sure to have a lovely beverage waiting for him when he drops in through the patio door.

   Reply
4. Jim Warren says:

   July 31, 2009 at 3:16 pm

   Ah, the joys of pool ownership. Finally was able to get a handle on the mustard algae in our pool, and this lovely piece somehow makes all the effort somewhat more palatable. Wish I had time to write more here, but after today’s storms, i am surely needed to empty skimmer baskets, adjust the total Chlorine, and rescue the pool floats that have blown halfway to Kennesaw Mountain.

   Reply

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