Slumgullion

Hey, who wants to take a dip? Come on in, the water is fine!


Oh good hell, I gasped, then I swore like a cop when the pool guys pulled back the cover to expose this stinking mess. It was either curse or cry and I was all cried out last week, so cursing it was. What the hell, what the hell? Just when I thought I was climbing up the slope on the cement pond learning curve, I got kicked all the way back down. This cost a fortune and I don't know who to blame.

Every fall, I pay someone to "close the pool." They dump a ton of chemicals in the water, float some bags of chlorine, stretch the winter cover over the top and when they come back to open it in the spring, there's a lot of debris in the water, but it's pretty clear other than the floaters. Not this year, that's for damn sure. It was revolting. I had a different pool company close the pool last fall and I called them to schedule the pool opening back in March because every pool service gets so overbooked in late May. The woman I spoke to apparently thought I was a nut job, because she ignored me and didn't put me on the schedule. So by the time they got to me, it was three weeks later than I had anticipated, but still, this didn't get that bad in three weeks, did it? When I moved into the house, we didn't open the pool until July 7 that year and the water was fine. The two young men who had come to get the pool open were full of speculation, all except for the obvious to me answer that someone fucked up the closing and further fucked it up when they didn't get out to open in until three weeks after I asked for it to be done. So, to add salt to the wound, I had to let them drain the damn pool, do an acid wash, and fill the money sucking pit back up with fresh water. I hate financial rape and I'm feeling very victimized, to the tune of $987 victimized not including the water bill yet to come, that will be at least $200. Damn. Then, when the pool was empty, a sight I NEVER want to see again, you can see where the plaster has been worn away (the chlorine eats it up) and the concrete is starting to show and that can only mean one thing (or so I have recently learned); it will start leaking unless it is replastered. Who the hell do you get to replaster a pool? and how the hell much is that going to cost? Now I understand the comments I've received from any number of people who find out I have an antique swimming pool in the back yard: "so, are you going to fill that in?" Well, yes, I just might, dammit.








And last, but not least in my graphic essay of swimming pool nightmare hell, the one bright spot, My Hero. Seriously. Who needs a husband when you already have a power washer?