A Time To Fill, A Time To Drain

Poolio is about to be settled down for a long winter's nap.

This evening, about five minutes after we arrived home and jumped the thermostat down to 73, Farmer H rolled in and called to The Pony from behind the short couch.

"Hey! Pony! Come up here."

The Pony, wise to the ways of his father, nigh on these 17 years he has been under the Farmer's thumb, came only halfway up the basement steps. He stood looking through the wooden stair railings that separate the living room from the stairwell. Only his head, from the chin up, was visible.

"I'm going to go put on my trunks, and..." Farmer H paused. Not for dramatic effect. But because he sometimes forgets what he set out to say. The Pony looked on in horror. I couldn't stop myself.

"And you get to watch!"

I didn't think it was possible for The Pony to look more horrified. But he did. Then, as if an imaginary force, perhaps the one I heard walking from the kitchen into the #1 son's room last night while The Pony was in the shower and Farmer H was in bed, hit Farmer H to knock his thoughts back into his grand announcement.

"...get in the pool and scrub the bottom with the vacuum. You can hand it to me, and then we'll take out the steps."

I'm sure Farmer H meant he would get out first, and THEN they would remove the steps. Because The Pony wasn't dressed for Poolio, and Farmer H can't hoist himself out without the steps.

"We're going to close up the pool. It's going to get cold this week. I want to do it before it gets cold."

Let the record show that the forecast calls for temps in the mid-80s this week. Hardly a cold snap. Also let the dadblasted record show that Farmer H spent over 70 dollars on a new pool cover. You know, because he slashed the old one because he rolled it up with a pouch of water in it, and couldn't get it over the side when he opened Poolio for the summer.

I'm surprised he doesn't simply dig a new in-ground pool every summer, leaving the old ones to sit like so many holes in the movie...um...HOLES!