It was four weeks into summer, and not one person who owned a pool had invited us over. The kids were driving me crazy to go to the beach, but yuck! I loathe the salt and sand. Besides, 99% of the beachfront in Connecticut is privately owned, leaving the rest of us helpless saps to trip over each other on the remaining five feet of sand.
So anyway, I bought an Intex pool online at Walmart and picked it up that night. The reviews were good. The price was right (it was on sale for $99). Bam, done.
I dragged the box into the backyard with the help of some neighbors and waited for Chuck to get home from work. When he got out of the car — the poor man commutes an hour each way — he saw me standing there, pointing at the box, and tried to run into the house, but the kids and I each grabbed an arm and dragged him to the backyard, begging him to Please, please, please set this up tonight!
He took one look and said what I KNEW he would say: "We can't put this in the backyard. It's not level."
"But it is!" I argued nicely. (I'd had a few shots of vodka to prepare me for the smackdown.) "It's perfect back here. We can sit on the patio and watch the kids. I can see them from the kitchen window. It's private. It's perfect."
"It's not level."
"But it is!"
"It's not."
"It really is."
"It's really not."
Chuck took my hand and pulled me to our side yard and said, "See? This is level."
To be blunt, our side yard is like an exposed asscrack. Every house in the neighborhood and in the neighborhood behind ours can see our side yard. It's why my phone blows up when I shovel shit in my pajamas.
"Seventy-five children live in our neighborhood," I said. "If we put the pool here, we will never have a moment's peace. Do you want to kill me this summer?"
"It's level."
"It's a death wish."
And so on.
Our voices grew louder and louder, which attracted the attention of our young, fertile neighbors Bob and Claire, who wandered over to say hi — and, incidentally, proved my point about the lack of privacy in our asscrack side yard.
"Everything ok?" Bob asked.
"We're putting up a pool in the backyard."
"It's not level," Chuck yelled.
"But it is!"
Bob and Claire quickly left.
I went to the backyard, ripped open the box and started assembling the pool myself. "If you won't put it here then I will!"
Chuck, because he is a stand-up guy, sighed heavily and told me to step aside. He said he'd put up the pool under one condition: If the frame bent or the filters didn't work because it wasn't level, it was my own problem to fix. I agreed.
For three weeks everything went swimmingly. Then — d'oh — the pool started to slope. The filters stopped working. The water turned yuck.
It turns out Chuck was right: The backyard isn't level. I swear I had no idea.
"Kids," I said, "we're going to drain the pool and move it to the side yard."
As luck would have it, Chuck got home from work just as we were moving it. He jumped out of his car and yelled, "Oh no! After everything we went through we are keeping that pool in the backyard! The grass is already ruined."
"But it's not level!" I said.
"AGGGGGHHH" Chuck screamed. I swear I saw Bob and Claire pull down their window shades, just enough to keep them from view.
"Kids," I said, "your father is about to have a heart attack. Help me dig."
So we dug — sweating and sweating — piling the dirt up on a tarp and transporting it away.
Chuck got his leveler and instructed us on where to dig. The kids moaned. I spurred them on. I moaned. Chuck told us to dig deeper! Faster! It was like a scene from the Colonies in the Handmaid's Tale — except that the overseer, Chuck, got so disgusted with our paltry shoveling skills that he joined in.
Deeper! Faster!
Finally Chuck got his leveler and gave us the thumb's up. We moved the pool back into place.
"Mom?" Junior said hesitantly. "The pool is filthy."
"Then we'll clean it," I shouted. "Get me a brush and the dish soap."
I climbed into the pool, got on my hands and knees and scrubbed the dirt, grime and slime off the pool liner. Hours later, it seemed, I emerged, covered head to toe in brown soap bubbles. I swear, Bob and Claire were still watching out the window.
"Rinse that bitch and fill it up," I yelled. "She's ready!"
So here we are, weeks after that:
The kids LOVE the pool. It's the best fucking money I ever spent. I highly, highly recommend it.* The kids swim for hours, snorkeling and making whirlpools. The water height reaches my toddler's chest. I can watch the kids from the privacy of the patio. No one can see us.
There's just one thing. Now that the dirt has, um, settled, and the weight of the water has really, um, pulled the pool around, it's kind of obvious that even with all of the shoveling the, um, backyard definitely has a serious slope.
Chuck! I'M SORRY. Don't leave me! I love you! We can make it work!
*I also highly recommend the pool cover, pool chemicals, floating chlorine dispense and extra filters.
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