The (other) Cat in the Pool

Summertime at last! This time of year is so much fun, with cookouts and fishing trips and just setting on the front porch in the evenings, watching the grandkids play in the pool. Our family LOVES having a pool and every year we get it set up and ready for fun at the first sunny day that comes. When my kids were little, we had a HUGMONGOUS above ground pool, 18 ft across and 4 ft deep, which we practically lived in during the hot spells. They are a hassle to upkeep, though, because water does not just stay clean and clear on its own. As a matter of fact, the big fight every year was getting the pool ready to go in the spring – no one wanted to help me un-winterize it or clean it or fill it, so every year it was my job. Straightening the vinyl liner and scrubbing it would take 2 days – what a pain! One fall I had the bright idea of just leaving some water in the pool so in the spring I could just stir in some Clorox, give it a scrub and we’d be ready to go. So I left about a foot and a half of water in it, covered it tightly and let it marinate until May. The cover was just a couple of big tarps with weights on them, which worked pretty good, but by the time spring came around they had disintegrated and the pool was open for viewing. The clear blue water had turned into a brackish soup, and it had a bad smell. My kids and I were standing around it, trying to decide how ‘we’ were going to get THIS clean. My son, Noah, grabbed the rake and stuck it in the foul liquid and began to stir it around a little when suddenly something bubbled to the surface. Noah hooked it and started to reel it in, and then we saw what it was: a slimy bloated carcass of a stray cat, all grizzly and green, its twisted, foamy form rocking gently on the waves! Oh, Gawd, it was too horrifying for words to describe!! I am gagging just thinking about it!! Its eyes were still open and its lips were drawn back over its teeth like ghastly grin!! We all started screaming and gagging while Smiling Jack bobbed ever closer to the edge of the pool! So slimy and green – I can still see it! So repulsive was the object that it was the next day before we could overcome the gag reflexes and remove it from the pool. And if I had had trouble in the past getting volunteers to help me clean it, you can bet NO ONE would go NEAR it that spring! By the time I had the pool ready to go, there was so much bleach in it that birds flying overhead would hit the toxic cloud above our pool and nose dive into the back yard, totally overcome by the fumes. There was one good side effect – that year, none of the neighborhood kids even asked if they could swim !