As many of you know, I have been having an on again off again relationship with my $179 Big Lots pool that we bought right after Memorial Day. We were mostly on until we went to Florida for a week. Came home to a very angry pool. Green. Green with anger, not green with jealousy. Unless it was jealous that we went to Florida and didn't take it. Some of the dogs were green, too, now that I think of it.
Shocked it, try to de-algae-i-cize it, did everything anyone would suggest. Finally decided to call in the experts and quickly made friends with the "pool lady" a few miles away. "Bring me a sample of your water, Honey, and maybe it won't cost ya nothing."
Yeah, right.
Grabbed an empty water bottle and filled it with the water. Surprisingly, it was crystal clear. The problem was the algae on the bottom. Some of you are saying "duh" right now, but this is my first pool for which I am responsible. In Miami, we had Pedro. Pedro the pool boy. Pedro the 85 year old pool boy. I miss you, Ped.
So I don't bore everyone with every single detail, after many tries of different things, we finally just wound up draining the damn thing and starting over. It drained rather quickly and obviously the water went all over the place. Within minutes, the back yard was covered in worms. Fat, long, ugly worms. They shortly died (poor worms, I'm sorry) and then the dogs, of course, had to roll in them. Especially Bodi, my only girl. (This dog ! I swear - she is so sweet and pretty and feminine sometimes, but other times she is a pure hellion.)
The pool was almost empty and it was time to clean the bottom. Not so bad. Robin and I had raggy towels that we just kinda danced across the bottom. Reminded me of Lucy and Ethel in the wine vat. Then came the fun, I mean, hard part. Robin got on the side of the pool to get it as flat as possible. Guess I ought to mention that this is a rubber pool, The sides go up (and down) as it fills with (and drains) water. She was on her knees squeezing down the pool and my job was to sweep all the dirty algae water out. Through her knees. I had to use some force and she became instantly soaked. The sheer pleasure I took in this exercise is so wrong. And it was so obvious at the fun I was having. "Wait!!!! No!!! I missed a spot over here." And "Oh! This is a tough patch!!" I guess I shouldn't have laughed so hard when Robin opened her mouth to yell at me at the exact same time, you guessed it, SSSWIIIIIIISSSSSHHHHH.
Finally got it as good as we were gonna get it and we started the eight hour long process of refilling it. After an hour or so I had a great idea! Who cares how much water is in there? We can still float, right?
We looked like complete idiots. Here we where, lying on our floats in a pool with about two inches of water. And no sides. Two inches of water does nothing to raise the pool. Not to mention keep a person afloat. If somebody had stopped by and seen us, they probably would have thought that we were dead back there.
But all's well that ends well and my $179 Big Lots pool and I are back on.
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