There's been an ongoing pool drama in our neighborhood.
The pool opened on April 1, as scheduled. I was looking forward to my first, excruciatingly cold outdoor swim of the year, like I always do. And since my birthday was April 4, I thought that would be the perfect day to move outdoors from the 24 Hour Dungeon of Fitness pool, which I have previously despised at great length in this very space.
So, on my birthday, I head down to the pool. As I put my stuff down in a chair, a guy says "Are you going to swim?"
Um, yeah--that's why I have all this swimming crap with me, man.
"The pool hasn't been cleaned since October. I just put in a huge dose of chlorine. It should be fine by Thursday."
That's okay by me, to wait two more days, but I bet the people I saw swimming last weekend would be pretty pissed if they knew they were swimming in water that hadn't been cleaned for five months.
I kind of thought that opening the pool AFTER cleaning the pool would be common sense. And it is, but common sense for our neighborhood association is as difficult as The Cherry Orchard for second graders.
On Thursday, I go back--and can't get into the pool. It seems that the magnetic lock (keycard activated) has broken, and they changed the deadbolt lock when they got the magnetic lock to force everyone to use the keycards. Which don't work now. And neither do the old keys.
I know our neighborhood association. They're just as likely to dig a tunnel from the parking lot under the gate as they are to fix the lock. This lock situation could take weeks to resolve. And every second I think about this damn situation, I feel like I'm getting hassled by The Man, and I hate getting hassled by The Man.
On Saturday, I decide that I've had enough. I'm climbing the damn fence.
It's just eight feet high with iron bars. Come on, how hard could it hurt to fall eight feet? I mean, I jumped off the roof once when I was a kid.
By the way, if you're a woman, you've just discovered one of the fundamental differences between us and you. We all jumped off the roof at least once when we were kids. And none of us, even then, knew why, other than to wonder "Hey, I wonder if I could jump off the roof without breaking my leg?" So we did.
So I climb up the fence, do my best to impale myslf on the top, and jump off with all the grace of a drunken--well, it doesn't matter what, really, because I've already established that it was drunk.
But I'm in, baby. I'm in the pool.
Five minutes later, a lady shows up, opens the deadbolt, and comes in. She's with the new maintenance company that's been hired to keep the pool clean, and gave me the straight dope on the cleaning situation. Basically, the old company did a completely half-ass job. I may need to retroactively scrub myself with a wire brush to decontaminate myself from last year.
I'm swimming, though, and the water is absolutely balmy for this time of year--seventy-five degrees. I swam a mile and didn't even start to lose sensation in my arms. In mid-April, that's luxury living.
More good news: I can walk out of the pool instead of climb, because the cleaning lady is still there. And she's starting some serious cleaning when I leave. My problem, though, is that even if the pool is clean, I have to climb the damn fence to get in.
Saturday night, I tell Gloria we need to stop at Academy Sports and Outdoors. I need to look for something, I say. We walk in and I head to the marine section. "What are we looking for?" Gloria asks.
"Right here," I said. "Boat ladders."
"What?"
"See these little hook ends? One of these on each side of the swimming pool fence, baby. I'm climbing in style."
"Oh, my god," Gloria said. She says that. And since I'm buying two boat ladders to climb over an eight foot iron fence to break into my own pool, I can't really argue with her.
I can, however, swim.