"pool saga" rerun

It is Monday evening, and the Geek Squad have decided to take my computer hostage; that's the only reason I can think of for them keeping it at least a WEEK!  I'M GOING CRAZY!!!  So here's a post I like and plan to add drawings to someday.  Hope it gives you a good laugh - this happened in 2003.


It all started a week ago Sunday when I saw a store ad in the newspaper for a 3'x8' pool for $40. I thought, hey, what an inexpensive, simple way to enjoy some leisure time this summer. I bought the pool, but of course while I was at the store I also needed a hose, air pump to inflate the upper ring of the pool, inflatable floating mat, and swimsuit. To save money, I went cheap on the swimsuit and got a bicycle pump instead of an electric or battery-powered pump.

I went home, excited to get started, and set up everything in the backyard. Then I discovered the bicycle pump didn't fit the pool. I played around with different attachments and things but couldn't get it to work, so I decided I'd better watch the instructional video that came with the pool. (No Tools Needed! Quick Set-Up!) But I didn't have a VCR to watch the tape, and I didn't want to borrow the neighbors' VCR because I didn't want them to know I had a pool and then have to invite their young daughter, M., over to swim - I bought the thing so I could RELAX. So I called the public library, got transferred to 3 people, and found out I could watch my tape on their VCR if I reserved a room. Fortunately, the room was available, so I headed to the library to figure out how to inflate the pool rim.

Of course, the video said nothing about how to inflate the rim, it just said "inflate", then went on and on about how their own handy pump, available at many retailers near me, worked well for this job. So I went back to the store to see how much the handy pool pump cost, but they didn't have it. I went to a 2nd store, and they didn't have it. However, while I was driving, I remembered the movie "Apollo 13" and how they had to solve the carbon monoxide problem by attaching a square part to a round hole. With that inspiration, I went home to try again.

When I got home, I realized I had no duct tape (sorry, Dad, you tried your best), so I took out some clear packaging tape and tried that. About half a roll later, I had the pump attached to the pool and all airways blocked (on the pool). In the process, however, I'd sliced the side of my thumb twice on the metal teeth of the tape roller and split open the seam at the back of my shorts. I went inside (we're a few hours into this process now), got bandaids, checked my shorts, saw that an inner seam was still holding together, decided that was good enough, and went back outside.

Finally, I was ready to pump up the pool with my trusty, cheap bicycle pump. At first I thought I was getting nowhere, I took a lot of breaks, my bandaids kept coming off, and my shorts split some more. During this whole time, my dog Chester and his doggie friend Tessa were in the house barking their heads off because they were missing all the fun outside. I grabbed the handy packaging tape and taped my bandaids onto my thumb and kept on going, trooper that I am. (Some would say stubborn.) After a while I made some good progress, but then seemed to be getting nowhere again, and I couldn't find a leak. By this time I'd been working with the pump for about an hour, so I went inside, called my friend S., and offered to buy him dinner if he'd come finish the job.

S. good-naturedly came to the rescue, and after I added some more tape and sliced my thumb a 3rd time, I held the seal and S. used the pump and we finished pretty quickly. At last, I thought, I'm going to enjoy my pool. I hooked my new hose up to the house and began filling the pool. While this was happening my young neighbor M. came over and caught me in the act. She began asking lots of questions, including when could she get in. I tried to explain that it was my pool for relaxing, not for other people to play in, and she offered to relax in it with me. Then she said, "I'll be right back," and left. A couple of minutes later she returned and said her mom said it was okay for her to play in my pool. I told her, nicely, that I hadn't invited her to play in my pool yet, so she shouldn't ask her mom yet. S. started laughing at me, because he knew I'd eventually give in, and went into the house. A few seconds later he came back outside and said, "Kerri, we have a problem." (Just like Apollo 13!) But I was still bickering with M. about whether or not I was going to share my pool with her, so I ignored S. until he yelled, "Kerri, your house is flooded!"

I turned off the hose, sent M. back home, and went inside to find my living room carpet soaked and about 1/2 inch of water on the linoleum in the kitchen/dining room. The pipe that runs from the house to the spigot outside had split. I started moving stuff up, around, and outside. In the process, I tried to push the dining table along the floor and one of the legs broke off. Since this was my lucky day, I caught the table before all my papers, teaching materials, etc. fell off into the water. At this point, Chester and Tessa are now in the backyard barking up a storm because they're missing all the fun in the house.

S. left to get a wet vac and I called the management co. I rented from. The ditzy girl working the answering service didn't know what a spigot was; I explained it and told her I needed someone ASAP. Neighbors came over to see what was going on and to offer help, S. returned with the wet vac, and I decided I'd better call the mgmt. co. again. A different woman answered and put me through to a maintenance guy right away. The carpet dryer-outer arrived, and he turned out to be just as chatty as S, so while he and S. carried on a great conversation and did a little work, I did some cleaning then went outside to quiet the dogs and talk to M., who had come back a couple of times to watch the fun. Twenty-four hours and a jumbo margarita later, I enjoyed my pool - alone.

old dog, new trick

Yesterday I jumped into the deep end of a pool by myself for the first time ever.  My niece and nephew and sis-in-law and mom good-naturedly watched and encouraged and praised me.  (Okay, niece and nephew were a bit underwhelmed, but I was glad they were there.)  I learned how to swim about 4 years ago - actually, when I showed the instructor at the Y what I could do, she said I could already swim, I just didn't have any technique.  I still move around in the pool a bit like a penguin with only one flipper, but I discovered I love to swim and wasn't afraid of the water anymore.  Later, I figured out how to tread water in a water aerobics class.  I had a brief moment of fear yesterday as I sunk into the water after the jump and didn't have anything to hold onto, but I made it.  Yeah!  :)

My next goal (hopefully will do this summer) is to jump off a diving board.  I'm hoping my friend Sam can help me with that.  The only time I've ever jumped off a board was in swimming lessons when I was 7, and I was so scared I held onto a pole with the instructors on the other end when I jumped, then literally climbed up the pole in a panic after I hit the water.  Not exactly great diving technique, but I think I showed real promise as Spiderwoman.

I wonder what I'll do next?  What will you do?

adventures with my 1st car - accident in Iowa

This particular adventure doesn't have a lot of humor or quirkiness, more scared-to-death and on my knees thanking God for safety.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I decided to drive from Wichita, KS to Wheaton, IL, one November to visit friends.  I asked a couple of different people if they wanted to ride along, and fortunately for them, they said no.  I'd gone to college in Wheaton for a year and a quarter, and I'd been there for visits since, so the drive was familiar to me.

It started to snow in Iowa, or maybe just before Iowa, but it was a dry, powdery snow and not accumulating fast, so everyone slowed down to 45 mph or so and kept going.  I'd just passed the exit for Osceola, Iowa, not far north of the state line, when I encountered a car going about 30 mph.  This trip was going to be long enough even without the snow delay, and I was in my early 20s and stupid, so I tried to pass the car.  I probably would have made it, too, had not a huge snow plow in the left lane gradually appeared through the falling snow.  "Uh-oh," I thought - I looked to my right but I hadn't fully passed the car yet and couldn't pull back over.  So I gently tapped the brakes, hoping not to skid or crash head-on into the plow, and prayed.  The car spun backwards, counter-clockwise, fortunately missing the other car, and I began sliding backwards down the ditch on the right side of the road.  Except I kept on sliding...and sliding...long after I thought I should have hit the bottom of the ditch.  "God!" I screamed, and it was a cry not only of fear and a plea for intervention, but an expectation of his help as well.  It was interesting to me later to realize that my immediate reaction in that kind of situation was not only fear but also a strong feeling of, "Come on and save me already!"  Finally the car came to a shuddering crash, tilted at about a 45-degree angle to the right.  (Thank the Lord no one was with me.)  The passenger window shattered, the front passenger-side wheel was pushed inward at about a 45-degree angle, my seatbelt popped open and my glasses fell off.  But once I'd collected myself, I found that I was okay.  Truly not even a scratch.

I got out of the car and climbed up a long hill to the highway, and waved down the first car I saw.  Turns out he was an off-duty sheriff's officer, and he radioed for help - the snowplow driver had seen me and called for help, too.  I was in a bit of shock, but I remember being thankful for the officer's warm car to wait in, for the policeman who offered to go down to my car and collect my bags for me, and for the fact that I was only a mile or so past Osceola, where I could stay and have my car repaired.

In the motel room, I remember falling to my knees in prayer, and talking on the phone with my grandma and my brother, who suggested I read Psalm 91, which was a comfort.

The next day I called my insurance agent and rode out to my car with the tow truck the police had called to get my car out.  It had stopped snowing, and we were able to see clearly what had happened.  I'd landed in a cement culvert that ran under the highway.  The culvert was a squared-off U shape, and my car landed diagonally so that the passenger side hit the top corner of the right upright of the "U".  I'd missed hitting a wood and barbed-wire fence by a few feet.  The tow truck driver just shook his head and said he didn't think he could pull the car out, but he tried.  He drove down the hill and parked next to my car, but the truck just couldn't do it.  So the police called for a crane.  It turns out there had been so many semis that went off the road during the storm that all the cranes were busy until the next day, or maybe it was the next, so I waited.  I don't remember much about those days except walking to the nearby Subway for food a few times.

Finally, the crane arrived, set up on the highway just above my car, and did its work - it was pretty cool.  Not that I'd crash my car into a culvert again so I could watch, but it was pretty cool.  A tow truck took my car to the mechanic my insurance agent had found, and he made it driveable so I could get back to Wichita.  In this case, "drivable" was straightening out the front right wheel, taping plastic over the hole where the passenger window used to be, no muffler, and I'm not sure what else.  But I made it.  And I got another story to tell.  Best of all, I had a chance to see first-hand one of the truths of Psalm 91.

adventures with my 1st car - ridiculous number of flats

I tried giving this car a name when I first got her - it - but it didn't stick.  I'm just not the car-naming type.  Perhaps that's why she got into a snit one fall and got 5 or 6 flat tires in 2-3 months.  Perhaps they were just bad tires.  Perhaps the universe was trying to teach me something (How to change a flat tire?  Really?).  My personal belief is that my younger cousin Jessica caused them all.

This is her, by the way.  The pic's about 20 years old, though.  If you want an updated one so that you can watch out for her, let me know.  Jessica was with me when the 1st flat happened - actually, it was a complete blowout.  We weren't far from home, so I called my dad to come change the tire (how?? no cell phone, I'm drawing a blank - oh well) and after Dad changed the tire I remembered I'd taken a "powder puff mechanics" class and I knew how to change it myself.  Oh well.  I thanked Dad and kept my mouth shut.  The 2nd flat Jessica was responsible for was about my 4th overall.  I'd gone to see her perform in a school program, and when we walked outside afterward, I saw the tire and said, "I have a flat tire."  Jess told me later she thought I knew about the tire before we came out of the school because I'd said it so calmly.  But no, flats were a part of my life at this point.  I think my uncle, Jessica's dad, changed that one, even though I said "I can do it myself," so I can't take credit for that one, either.  Oh well - all in all I eventually got to the point where I could change a tire in 2-3 minutes, which really came in handy one day when it was pouring rain.

I actually have photographic evidence of one episode.  Two friends and I were on our way to another friend's wedding out of town when a tire went flat.  We all pitched in and made the best of it. 

                              
We were out in the country somewhere, and the ground was so soft we couldn't turn the lugnuts without the wheel turning, so Melanie provided the necessary extra weight so that Jim could take off the flat, and I recorded it for posterity.  But I did some of the tire-changing, too, I swear, so I get to count this one.

Because of the delay with the flat and because of my poor planning, we arrived late to the wedding.  Actually, we missed the whole thing.  When we entered the church, this is what we saw:

Yes, that is an usher releasing the guests pew-by-pew.  But we did get to talk to the happy couple, and on the drive back we were in a goofy mood and had a great time, so I guess it was worth it.

The barrage of flats ended as mysteriously as it began (or I just finally used up all the bad tires), and I had no further problems until years later with car #2.  I was getting ready to go to a bridal or baby shower and walked out the door and saw the flat.  Guess whose shower it was?  Yup - Jessica's.  She haunts me still.

awkward air conditioner adventure - awesome alliteration!

This story is similar to my pool saga, except I didn't have as bad of a day.  But it shows my tendency to rely on brute force (as much as I can muster, anyway) and determination rather than proper tools and common sense.

This is my apartment, or flat as one friend called it, in Illinois - it really was great!  Third-story apt. over shops on a quaint downtown street...but no a/c.  I discovered that Illinois-ers (?) aren't as into a/c as much as Kansans are, probably because they're further...north, and usually cooler.  I stuck it out for a while, but this KS girl needed her a/c.  (Time out:  I just went into the kitchen...I can't remember why now, but I caught Chester in the back yard eating one of my socks.  And I found my debit card in my sweats pocket, where I left it yesterday and would have almost washed it today.  Anyway, back to our story....)

So I drove to a store and bought a window unit.  Planning ahead?  What's to plan?  A guy put it on a cart for me and rolled it to the car, and I said, "Oh, you don't have to do that, I can get it," and he laughed.  Then we lifted it into my trunk and I said, "Oh my.  I had no idea these things were so heavy."  I drove back home, parked on the busy-ish downtown street (it's Saturday) near the apartment entrance, and willed that dang thing up over the lip of the trunk; gravity helped me get it to the ground.  Okay, I think, this is going differently than I expected, but it's no problem, I have all day, and if I have to lug this thing up one stair at a time with breaks in between until I reach my 3rd-floor apartment, I'll do it.  So I closed the trunk, bent down to get a grip on one of the plastic bands around the box, and pulled.  The thing didn't even budge.  Nothing moved, except for a few vertebrae in my back.  I couldn't even get the thing on the curb.  Okay.......I think, I can deal with this, I'd like to phone a friend now, Regis, except this is before cell phones (and Regis) were common, so I didn't have either one.  So do I leave the a/c in the street, run up 3 flights of stairs, make a quick call, and come back?  Do I ask one of the stores if I can use their phone?  Do I just yell "help" until my friends who live less than a block away hear me and come running?  None of those ideas sounded real good, not nearly as good as my idea to do this whole thing alone, and I decided that my thinking time had given me enough of a rest and I could at least get this thing on the curb now.  Bend, pull, grunt, nothing.

I've had a few interested onlookers by now, but this was one of the most snobby, most tony suburbs of Chicago (I just happened to find a place there - I did NOT fit in!) and I was in my usual Saturday casual attire with no makeup.  Probably pretty similar to how I looked in the "dressing myself" post in the 90s, but without the duck boots.  Needless to say, these people did not want to get involved, and were probably trying to figure out how a homeless person got into their realm and why she wanted to steal an air conditioner.  Fortunately, a very nice young man took pity on me, or was doing some community service time and decided this would count as cleaning up the streets - no, silly me, Lake Forest doesn't have people who do community service!  (Yes, I'm a snob snob.)  He kindly asked me if I needed help (you think?!) and I said yes before I told him I lived on the 3rd floor.  Once we got in the street-level door, I said we could just leave it there and I could go call someone, but he said he'd help me carry it all the way up, which he did, then promptly set it down with me outside my apt. door and nearly ran back down the stairs.

I opened the door and shoved the thing along the floor to the window - thank goodness I had hard-wood floors, not carpet.  Now what? I think.  For some reason I don't want to call for help to install the a/c - my middle name is I can do it MYSELF!  So I came up with the following process:

1.  take apart a/c and lift casing into window to check fit
2.  realize window sill isn't wide/deep enough and look around for a solution
3.  take a couple of loose boards from the wooden crates my uncle built for me and screw them, manually, into the window sill - yessiree bob, of course I didn't have power tools!
4.  install casing
5.  pull chair over to window
6.  focus all my strength and will and grunting ability on getting the main part of the a/c from the floor to the chair
7.  repeat #6, except go from chair to casing
8.  screw everything back together
9.  realize the side screens/whatever don't quite reach the frame, and fill in the gaps with sheets
10.  try out a/c - it worked!!!
11.  think maybe next time I should plan this kind of thing out first - which is why my pool installation several years later went so well

I may be a ditz, but I was darn proud of myself, and lived in comfort the rest of my days (until they sold the building and kicked everyone out because the new owners didn't want apartments up there).  You bet I took my a/c with me.  I left the boards, though.

more east vs. west, and other adventures

I am very thankful for the opportunities I've had over the years to travel, mostly in the US and once to Sweden and other parts of Europe.  I remember many road trips as a child; it was so exciting to be woken up at 4:00 a.m. when it was still dark and pack stuff to do in the car and play car games.  (All the games were fun except for the "He's touching me!" and "Her pinkie finger is on my side!" ones my brother and I knew so well.)   I remember one trip in particular, when my cousins Jackie and Shelly were with us, and they knew a whole bunch of silly songs and games.  We had a great time.

After my Sweden trip in the summer of '86, a friend/teammate from that trip flew in from CA and we drove to Colorado to visit another friend (and see a 3rd on the way there). 

Here I am spacing out late into the night before our trip to CO, because the basement had flooded.  I may just be tired, or I may be having a premonition of another house flooding 17 years later.  Or I may be trying to figure out which way to go on the highway tomorrow - "If we're in Kansas, and we're going to Colorado, I need to head...."

For a few great years I lived in a suburb on the north shore of Chicago, about a mile from Lake Michigan.  I LOVED that place, and Chicago itself.  I'd still be there if my inner Dorothy hadn't kicked in, dang her.  ("There's no place like home....")  But I digress.  I want to show you how smart I was back then, when I woke up early and walked to the beach to watch the sun rise over the lake.  I knew that we were on the west side of the lake, which meant I could see the sun rise in the east.  I figured that out all by myself.

I realize it's hard to tell if this is a sunrise or a sunset, but trust me, this is Lake Michigan and I did not boat over to...let me check my map...where's Benjamin when I need him...yeah - the state of Michigan to take this pic.  And I'm pretty sure that's the sun, not the moon.

In 1995 I had a great trip - I was living in Illinois, some friends were getting married in New York, and the following weekend my grandparents were celebrating their 50th anniversary in Kansas.  Sounded like a great reason for a road trip to me, and I hadn't seen much of the right half (okay, eastern part) of the country.  For the leg from IL to NY a friend of the couple rode with me as well as another, mutual friend.  We drove to Michigan, took the bridge in Detroit over to Canada, and crossed back over and saw Niagara Falls.  I wanted to stop to look at the Falls, but we didn't because by then we were all sick of each other.  At some point after we arrived in NY, the couple asked me how the trip went and I said pretty good, it was a bit scary when their friend drove.  "You let her drive?!" they said.  "You're telling me this now?!" I said.

After the wedding I took off by myself and had a great time.  Saw family in NY, a friend in PA, another friend in Mass., Wash. DC, the monastery where Thomas Merton lived in Kentucky, and some other states over that-a-way.  In Maryland they were so polite to ask me to "please drive gently" (on the sign, under "Maryland Welcomes You"), so I drove as gently as I could while driving 60mph (or were we back up to 70mph by then?), one hand on the steering wheel, one holding the camera, one eye on the road, and one taking a picture.  You're welcome, MD.

I was very excited to have to pull over in DC for a motorcade; I'm pretty sure there were flags on one of those cars, and there were another 1 or 2 SUVs behind that first one.  I spent a few hours in DC and really enjoyed it.  Thanks to my friend Kristin, I had handy-dandy maps for every state I went to, and I was able to navigate pretty well.

I wish I'd gotten more pics of state signs, but by the time I hit West Virginia I was running out of steam.  So was my car, an '87 Toyota hatchback.  Those hills in WV wore us out; we'd putt-putt up a hill, getting passed by cars while doing so, then coast fast down the hill and pass 1 or 2 of those cars, then get back in the right lane and putt-putt up, get passed, etc. etc.  Seeing the monastery in KY was a special time; I watched them celebrate Vespers in the evening, chanting, singing, praying - wonderful.  Unfortunately, all their rooms for visitors were booked so I stayed at the worst hotel I'd ever been in - I remember the roaches as clearly as I remember the monastery.

I barely remember going through Missouri - it was all getting to be a blur - but that's okay, it was only Missouri; I'd been there plenty of times.  :)  I made it to KS and enjoyed time with family, then realized I'd have to drive 12 more hours to get home.  (I'd figured that out before, but it didn't really hit me until it was time to go.)  That trip was a blur too, but apparently I made it.

Driving around 1/2 the country in one week!  I'm so glad I did it, and that I did it while I was young(er).

adventures with pets - Money

Once upon a time I adopted a sweet female Shar Pei we'll call Money.  Her owners were moving to a temporary house while they waited for another to be built, and they couldn't take her with them.  I should have seen the red flag when they told me none of their relatives or friends wanted her.  She was about 3 years old and had never been taken to the vet, so I had him give her the works.  (Ka-ching!)  After a day or two, I discovered an interesting side to her personality.  She FREAKED OUT every time she saw a rabbit, squirrel, cat, or anything small with fur.  My couch is by the front window so the dogs can see out, and she must've thought she had front-row seats to an action/horror film - she chewed when she got excited, and she ripped down and ruined my blinds, my curtains including the rod, and she ATE parts of two window frames.  Actually ripped off pieces of wood and ate them.  She also ripped down blinds by the back door and ate a hole in the carpet.  (Ka-ching!  Ka-ching!)

But in public she really shone.  She is the reason I stopped going to a nearby city park for about a year - I was too embarrassed to show my face.  The mildest incident was when we were still in the car and she saw another dog and bit a large chunk out of a headrest in the back seat.  The craziest is when she and Chester were running loose in an area enclosed by an 8-foot-high chain-link fence, and when another dog passed by (maybe 20 yards away, not right by) she took a running leap at the fence, landed about 2/3 of the way up, and CLIMBED the rest of the way to get over the fence and run to the dog and his/her elderly (of course) owners.  The gate in the fence was way on the other side of the enclosure, so I climbed the fence after her and chased her.  This was a sunny day, I don't remember what time, but we had an audience.  I grabbed Money's collar when I got to her - the owners were VERY nice, but the man had picked up their little dog to protect her from my monster and the dog had been so scared she'd peed all over the man's shirt.

Eventually I gave up and took Money to the Humane Society.  I called her former owners and said she's there if you want her, and they did.  If you're a big picture kind of person, I suppose you could look at my role in this whole fiasco as being Money's foster mom until her family could take her back, and someday this will be funny.  (Ka-ching!)

pool saga - an oldie but a goodie

06/10/03:  It all started a week ago Sunday when I saw a store ad in the newspaper for a 3'x8' pool for $40.  I thought, hey, what an inexpensive, simple way to enjoy some leisure time this summer.  I bought the pool, but of course while I was at the store I also needed a hose, air pump to inflate the upper ring of the pool, inflatable floating mat, and swimsuit.  To save money, I went cheap on the swimsuit and got a bicycle pump instead of an electric or battery-powered pump.

I went home, excited to get started, and set up everything in the backyard.  Then I discovered the bicycle pump didn't fit the pool.  I played around with different attachments and things but couldn't get it to work, so I decided I'd better watch the instructional video that came with the pool.  (No Tools Needed!  Quick Set-Up!)  But I didn't have a VCR to watch the tape, and I didn't want to borrow the neighbors' VCR because I didn't want them to know I had a pool and then have to invite their young daughter, M., over to swim - I bought the thing so I could RELAX.  So I called the public library, got transferred to 3 people, and found out I could watch my tape on their VCR if I reserved a room.  Fortunately, the room was available, so I headed to the library to figure out how to inflate the pool rim.

Of course, the video said nothing about how to inflate the rim, it just said "inflate", then went on and on about how their own handy pump, available at many retailers near me, worked well for this job.  So I went back to the store to see how much the handy pool pump cost, but they didn't have it.  I went to a 2nd store, and they didn't have it.  However, while I was driving, I remembered the movie "Apollo 13" and how they had to solve the carbon monoxide problem by attaching a square part to a round hole.  With that inspiration, I went home to try again.

When I got home, I realized I had no duct tape (sorry, Dad, you tried your best), so I took out some clear packaging tape and tried that.  About half a roll later, I had the pump attached to the pool and all airways blocked (on the pool).  In the process, however, I'd sliced the side of my thumb twice on the metal teeth of the tape roller and split open the seam at the back of my shorts.  I went inside (we're a few hours into this process now), got bandaids, checked my shorts, saw that an inner seam was still holding together, decided that was good enough, and went back outside.

Finally, I was ready to pump up the pool with my trusty, cheap bicycle pump.  At first I thought I was getting nowhere, I took a lot of breaks, my bandaids kept coming off, and my shorts split some more.  During this whole time, my dog Chester and his doggie friend Tessa were in the house barking their heads off  because they were missing all the fun outside.  I grabbed the handy packaging tape and taped my bandaids onto my thumb and kept on going, trooper that I am.  (Some would say stubborn.)  After a while I made some good progress, but then seemed to be getting nowhere again, and I couldn't find a leak.  By this time I'd been working with the pump for about an hour, so I went inside, called my friend S., and offered to buy him dinner if he'd come finish the job.

S. good-naturedly came to the rescue, and after I added some more tape and sliced my thumb a 3rd time, I held the seal and S. used the pump and we finished pretty quickly.  At last, I thought, I'm going to enjoy my pool.  I hooked my new hose up to the house and began filling the pool.  While this was happening my young neighbor M. came over and caught me in the act.  She began asking lots of questions, including when could she get in.  I tried to explain that it was my pool for relaxing, not for other people to play in, and she offered to relax in it with me.  Then she said, "I'll be right back," and left.  A couple of minutes later she returned and said her mom said it was okay for her to play in my pool.  I told her, nicely, that I hadn't invited her to play in my pool yet, so she shouldn't ask her mom yet.  S. started laughing at me, because he knew I'd eventually give in, and went into the house.  A few seconds later he came back outside and said, "Kerri, we have a problem."  (Just like Apollo 13!)  But I was still bickering with M. about whether or not I was going to share my pool with her, so I ignored S. until he yelled, "Kerri, your house is flooded!"

I turned off the hose, sent M. back home, and went inside to find my living room carpet soaked and about 1/2 inch of water on the linoleum in the kitchen/dining room.  The pipe that runs from the house to the spigot outside had split.  I started moving stuff up, around, and outside.  In the process, I tried to push the dining table along the floor and one of the legs broke off.  Since this was my lucky day, I caught the table before all my papers, teaching materials, etc. fell off into the water.  At this point, Chester and Tessa are now in the backyard barking up a storm because they're missing all the fun in the house.

S. left to get a wet vac and I called the management co. I rented from.  The ditzy girl working the answering service didn't know what a spigot was; I explained it and told her I needed someone ASAP.  Neighbors came over to see what was going on and to offer help, S. returned with the wet vac, and I decided I'd better call the mgmt. co. again.  A different woman answered and put me through to a maintenance guy right away.  The carpet dryer-outer arrived, and he turned out to be just as chatty as S, so while he and S. carried on a great conversation and did a little work, I did some cleaning then went outside to quiet the dogs and talk to M., who had come back a couple of times to watch the fun.  Twenty-four hours and a jumbo margarita later, I enjoyed my pool - alone.