The Green Lagoon, Part 4 of 4

The Green Lagoon, Part 4 of 4

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation 7/22/10

A few more weeks passed and Mike, the pool man, stopped coming around.   The last time I saw him was the afternoon he suddenly appeared in our secluded backyard at the very same moment I chose to go sunbathing au naturel.  I’m not sure which horrified him more: the uncontrollable green sludge in the pool or the sight of my white posterior on the chaise lounge.  Either way: the horror, the horror!

The really scary thing is, it could have been worse… 

Fortunately, Mike was alone this time, but the damage was done.  Let this be a lesson to all of you, especially those in the company of women and small children.  We love to see you, but do us all a favor:  call ahead. 

By my reckoning it was now day sixty two of the disaster with still no solution in sight.  On top of that it was unclear who was in charge.  Was it me, Mike, Admiral Thad Allen, Sean Hannity?  And the frustrating thing was, we still had not stopped the growth of the green algae.  An angry family demanded to know when the pool would be cleaned, but stopping the algae was clearly job one.  We had to staunch the growth before we could even consider steps to clean it up. 

Friends continued to chime in with suggestions:  drain and refill the pool.  Too costly.  Shock the crap out of it.  Uh, tried that (see Part 2).  One expert warned that mixing different types of chlorine could form an explosive brew, rendering the entire pool unstable!

Others suggested that the Obama Administration was behind the green sludge.  The reasoning was simple: force us to use our air conditioners, taxing the electrical grid to failure and thus calling into need new energy legislation… or something like that.  It was the kind of logic only a political genius could follow: someone like Glenn Beck. 

Finally, at day eighty eight there was a breakthrough!  A friend of my wife suggested a new “Top Kill” method:  two gallons of Diamond Clear Mega Shock, twelve point five percent sodium hypochlorite. 

The procedure began in the middle of the night and an anxious family awaited the results with bated breath.  In the morning I led a team of experts to the site, comprised of myself, my son, and our dog, whom I do not particularly care for (see Dog). 

The cautious news rang out: the pool was blue!  Cloudy, but blue!  The spread of the evil, green contamination appeared to be stopped!  The cleanup could commence!

But the cleanup soon revealed itself to be as daunting as stopping the algae spread.  The pool filter constantly clogged with green mucous.  When we ventured into the pool, the bottom was slimy and we kicked up great, green plumes as we walked.  It all appeared hopeless once again. 

Worried about neighborhood opinion, I bought advertising in the local paper pledging we would “do what it takes to make this right.”  But I was roundly criticized for using my time and resources in this manner.

 Desperate times call for desperate measures and so a new plan was devised.  The new method, labeled the “Bottom Suck,” would be to vacuum the bottom inch of sludge, not through the filter, but out of the pool entirely.  Recent rains had lifted the water level high enough that the experts (me) concluded that the audacious new attempt might succeed. 

Other experts (my wife) objected that the super-chlorinated water might “kill the lawn.”  This delayed the plan as feverish negotiations and recalculations took place. 

Finally the new plan was approved, but with modifications mandated by the authorities (my wife, again).  The following day my son manned the pump switch and the expulsion hose which would dump hundreds of gallons of contaminated water into a hastily improvised containment unit: our wheel barrow. 

Execution of the plan was loud and messy but gallons of green water began surging into the containment unit.  Each time it filled the procedure had to be stopped as I wheeled the green water to a “safe location,” whose precise whereabouts are known only by myself and certain high-ranking officials of the British Petroleum company. 

As of this writing the pool remains blue but somewhat cloudy.  The bottom is without sludge.  The cleanup effort goes on.  The impact may be felt for years, even decades to come.  No one knows for sure what the full cost may be.  What we do know is that expensive new rules and regulations will have to be put in place: This year, instead of closing the pool myself, I’ll have to pay a professional to do it. 

Maybe I can get Mike to come back?

The End

The Green Lagoon, Part 3

The Green Lagoon, Part 3

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation 7/18/10

Leave it to the professionals: that’s my motto.  If you want a robust economy, elect Republicans.  If you want accurate news reporting, tune in to FOX.  If you want safe, clean energy, turn to BP.  So I awoke heartened Saturday morning by the knowledge that a professional was on the job.  I had hired Mike, from Joe’s Pool Maintenance (not his real name), to eradicate the ugly, green, algae slick that had consumed the waters of our own little gulf, off the coast of our back deck. 

Mike had asked for a down payment on his quote.  I was thinking fifty dollars.  Mike was thinking one hundred.  “You can post-date the check,” he offered.  I was thinking post-date it to the coming Friday.  Mike was thinking Monday.  As Monday was the first day he could cash the check, this wasn’t much of a post date.  But one more glance at the angry, green invader destroying our summer told me this was no time to split hairs. 

Saturday came and went, but no sign of Mike.  Sunday was the same story.  I continued to poor shock into the pool each night, ignoring the possibility that I might accidentally clean the pool and Mike might get the credit and the cash.  This was no time for pettiness.  Like Obama when he first took office, I didn't mind who took the credit.  I wanted to work together.   A good result would be a good result.

When Monday morning turned into Monday afternoon, with still no sign of Mike, I called Joe’s Pool Maintenance.  No one answered, of course, this being one of those types of business that doesn’t need customers and thrives on torturing the pool fools who insist on being one.  I left a message that more or less said the down payment I had given Mike was not to buy chrome polish for his Hummer.  Crazy thought, but I was actually hoping their man might show up and work on the pool.

On Tuesday morning Allah smiled upon me and Mike appeared, this time driving a spanking new Ford Super Duty F-450 King Ranch pickup truck in gleaming burgundy, with a blinding chrome grill and matching, twenty-inch wheels.  Ford’s website says the base price for this truck is sixty-two thousand dollars, making me wonder, yet again, why no one ever told me that the real money isn’t in computers, law or medicine; it’s in dealing with the stuff that doctors, lawyers and programmers can’t handle. 

Happy to see Mike’s newfound practicality, and even happier that he had actually appeared, I ignored the fact that he came in tow with a barefoot, four-year-old girl wearing a stained, pink, party dress.  She had long black hair and soulful eyes and only stared at me when I asked her name.

Still, I was eager to see Mike get to work.  But first, it seemed, we needed to have a little talk... 

Evidently not pleased with the phone message I had left, Mike informed me that he is Joe’s Pool service.  Mike is Joe; got it.  He also told me he is Joe’s Plumbing, Joe’s Electrical, Joe’s Handyman, etc.  For any job, up to and including building a nuclear reactor in my basement, Joe was the man.  Or Mike was.  Good to know. 

Mike set about pouring chemicals into the pool and barking orders at me.  I needed to clean the pool filter.  I needed to vacuum the pool.  If I did all of the manual labor, Mike assured me, he would take care of the rest. 

Mike guaranteed me that we would see a fifty percent improvement in the pool by Wednesday and then mounted the ascent to his pickup truck driver’s seat.  The silent, little girl clambered up the other side like a Sherpa's daughter, and off they rumbled.

Wednesday morning dawned and we opened the blinds to see... pretty much the same, copper green water as the day before.  Over the next few days Mike appeared at odd moments to pour chemicals into the pool and swear about our filter or the water pressure in our garden hose.  He offered to work on our plumbing.  I suggested we focus on the pool.  “If this was easy,” I reminded him, “we wouldn’t need a professional.” 

Mike bit his lip and departed.  But not before insisting the third step of our pool was now visible instead of only the top two.  Well… maybe. 

Apparently the Green Monster was proving too much for our local entrepreneur.  Days went by with no sign of Mike.  A heat wave struck and my son and I swam in the green slime and showered thoroughly thereafter.  My wife refused to go in and only glowered at me as she dabbed at the beads of sweat forming beneath her dark bangs.

 

To be continued…

The Green Lagoon, Part 2

The Green Lagoon, Part 2

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation 7/18/10

As the first installment of this saga closed, our pool was lime green, our local pool store had refused to sell me chemicals and young girls were paying no attention to me, unless they needed directions. 

While my wife was happy with the third development, she was skeptical of the second, and extremely displeased with the first. 

We began soliciting advice: lots and lots of advice.  People may be reticent to discuss sex, politics and religion, but ask them about your pool problem and there is no shutting them up.  Everyone in America—and I mean everyone—is a pool maintenance expert. 

Most of the advice can be distilled to this:  shock the crap out of it.  And so I did, venturing out onto the back deck night after night to wave bag after bag of pool shock into the murky waters.  Each morning I awoke and—like a middle-class American praying for good things from Republican policies—crept to the window and peered out, expecting to see our sparking blue pool again.  Only to see:  coast of Louisiana, summer of 2010. 

My cheapness is legendary, at least around here, and so I began to perform calculations in my head.  Let’s see, dumping forty dollars of shock into the pool, every night, all summer long, versus hiring someone to do this right…  I needed quotes from local pool experts to complete the math.

I started calling and soon discovered that pool maintenance is one of those professions which, like plumbing or politics, requires no response to their customer base.  No one picks up the phone, only answering machines.  Fifty percent of the outfits I contacted never returned my call. 

Of those that did, most did not want to come over.  They preferred to give advice that can be distilled to this:  shock the crap out of it.

One local, eager beaver was ready to jump in, so to speak.  His name was Joe from Mike’s Pool Maintenance, or Mike from Joe’s Pool Maintenance.  Since my name is Quentin, any name less exotic than Winthrop or Dakota really doesn’t register with me.  I apologize. 

Anyway Joe said he would come over after one P.M.  One turned to two, turned to three, and then four.  I was beginning to believe this was yet another sign from God, as I am sure God closely monitors the condition of my swimming pool.  When all of a sudden Joe appeared in a chromed-out, full- sized, glossy, black Hummer. 

“What kind of mileage does that thing get,” I asked.  “Five?”

“Seven,” replied Joe, somewhat defensively.  “Look, if I had to worry about the cost of gas, I wouldn’t drive it.”

Sounded reasonable enough.  It also made me wonder why my high school guidance counselor never mentioned “pool boy” as the ideal occupation for me.  I never even knew it was an option!

It also made me wonder how much Joe might charge me.  One hundred and fifty dollars, plus chemicals, was the answer.  Good enough.  When can we get started?

Joe said I would see him tomorrow, Saturday.  Great, I thought, watching eighty-five thousand dollars worth of gas-guzzling, chromed-out, social irresponsibility disappear down my driveway.  This has to turn out well… doesn’t it?

To be continued…

The Green Lagoon, Part 1

The Green Lagoon, Part 1

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation 7/18/10

This summer, while the British Petroleum company has been destroying the Gulf of Mexico, my family and I have been experiencing our own ecological disaster right here in Connecticut: our pool is green. 

For years our pool has been filled with crystal clear, blue water.  That all changed at the end of last summer when we made the mistake of hosting a pool party.  What ten children and a couple of adults did in our pool one can only imagine, but the effects were obvious.  Within days our beautiful, blue pool began to morph into the dreaded Green Lagoon.

Reacting to this development required a trip to the local pool store, only, I won’t go to the store in our town anymore.  My local merchant seems to believe that charging a four hundred percent mark-up on everything, so that he can make his annual income in the space of two weeks’ time, is the perfect business plan.  Not only does he charge prices that would make a Kardashian choke, he serves up his goods with a healthy dose of insolence and a quaint lack of cooperation.  The combination leaves me breathless. 

I once went into his store with a water sample and a box of half-used chemicals.  My plan was simple: show them what I had and buy only what I needed.  Instead I was grilled about where I bought the half-used chemicals.  Accusation followed interrogation.  “Did you buy those here?  You didn’t buy those here!” 

Okay, yes, and?

They told me the chemicals I had were incompatible with the chemicals they sold.  Evidently chlorine is not chlorine.  Bottom line (hold on to your hats):  they could not help me.  They refused to sell me anything!  

Okay, then…  

I drove to a pool store in a neighboring town and spent a week’s salary there.  I guess my local pool store showed me!

So it was off to the neighboring town again to nip the post-party problem in the bud.  There, I was greeted as usual by a single, teenage girl manning an empty store.  These girls, dressed in short-shorts and midriff baring fashion, come in one of two body types:  slightly overfed or absolutely perfect.  No matter.  Either way I have reached the age when I am invisible to women under the age of thirty. 

Within an acceptable time frame she put down her smart phone, tucked her gum into one cheek and ran our sample through the analyzer.  Her manicured nails clicked on the computer keyboard.  A print-out said I needed fifty pounds of this, seventy pounds of that, and maybe another fifty pounds of something else.  Follow the instructions and all would be well. 

The instructions, however, were problematic.  They said to put five pounds of chemical A into the pool, wait eight hours and then put in another five pounds.  They said to follow this procedure for chemical A, then for chemical B, and then for C.  Performing some quick math in my head I realized that, if I never slept, I could complete this procedure by Christmastime.  Assuring my wife that directions are for weenies, I dumped all of the chemicals into the pool at once.    

The pool turned into an ominous, milky-gray sludge.  It looked like the color the sky turns just before the tornado touches down.  It was the end of the season so I decided to batten down the hatches, close it up, and let a good winter freeze make everything right again. 

Over the winter, tragedy struck.  The very expensive cover on the pool, only in its second season of use, ripped.  Perhaps a metric ton of fallen leaves, buds, insects and bird droppings dumped into our own, personal gulf.  When we pulled off the tattered remains in the spring, the ominous gray color was gone.  The pool water was now the color of a lime green Popsicle.  Our long, local nightmare had only just begun…

To be continued…