Halfway through my first summer as a pool owner, I’ve clearly become a “pool guy.”
At this point we’ve survived small gatherings, family swims, and a blowout party without any major incidents so something’s going right.
We don’t yet have the stereotypical lifesaver on a rope hanging on the pool house wall but we’ve got a first aid kit with a lifeguard cross on the cover, a freezer full of freeze pops, and a counter full of sunblock.
I didn’t know how I’d take to the pool-owner lifestyle. Luckily, it suits me.
There are worse ways to spend an evening than by quietly skimming beetles and (pine) needles outside.
It’s fun having a collection of tools that fit on the end of a long stick and operating the filter gives me a simple-machine thrill.
Any day where I turn levers and meaninglessly tap on gauges is a good day.
I’m not particularly good at getting the vacuum hooked up (there’s a whole thing about drowning the hose to get all the air out of the system) but once it’s operational I love slowly moving the vacuum head across the pool’s bottom.
It feels like I’m painting the floor clean.
I have a hard-bristled brush for getting sediment off the corners, which is a bit of work but makes such a big difference that it makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something.
Really, I’ve just mixed the grit back into the water but sometimes the illusion of progress is all you need.
I run the filter overnight and hope to wake up to sparkling clean water which, on the rare night (lately) when it doesn’t rain, usually works.
The chemicals are a struggle for me.
I learned the hard way not to bring clothes or towels I care about anywhere near chlorine. Each granule is a tiny bleach bomb waiting to streak my fabrics pink.
I had planned to dip my toe into pool chemical shopping but an intense round of “chlorine tablet shortage” news stories shoved me into the deep end early in the season – before we’d even uncovered the pool.
Local news beat everyone over the head with a “chlorine tablet shortage” story fifteen times in one morning so the rush that could’ve been spread out over a month all got concentrated into one stock-clearing day.
After learning which chemicals I’d need, I headed out to get just enough chlorine tablets to last me through the season.
I’ve always been intimidated by pool supply stores like Namco and Leslie’s Pools.
Buying buckets of expensive highly-toxic chemicals is intimidating in its own right but especially when you’ve never done it before and morning news anchor voices keep reverberating in your head saying, “pool owners may be in for a ‘shock’ as the chlorine shortage is sure to ‘sting.’”
I confirmed with a store employee that I was buying the right products but it was pretty clear that the pallet being stripped bare in front of my eyes was probably the one with the item everyone wanted.
One guy pushing two shopping carts felt compelled to tell me that he had two pools.
I wanted to respond, “Two pools!? What do you train seals?” But, instead I said, “Smart!”, which didn’t make any sense but seemed to make him feel better.
It was a surge of desperation I hadn’t seen since Covid’s early days and I resented being a part of it without even knowing if I needed to be (so far as I can tell tablets are still available but they’ve since doubled in price).
Fear seems to be a big motivator within the pool community.
I’m constantly mailed catalogs claiming to remove all my algae and get my water’s PH under control but it’s all too much.
I’m not sure what “algaecide” is, but I’m pretty Saddam Hussein was guilty of it.
I stick to an old-school regimen of chlorine and vigorous filtration.
It’s amazing what you find in your filter basket, especially after a hard rainfall.
The strangest thing I’ve found in my pool’s filter basket is a gun.
A squirt gun, to be clear, but still a big surprise.
It’s far from the worst thing I could’ve found after hosting three pre-teen boys especially considering that their favorite part of the pool wasn’t the water slide but rather the moths who were attracted to the light inside the pool at night and followed it to a watery grave.
Maybe I’m doing too much skimming after all.
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