This past winter was nasty.
It was freezing cold, overcast, and snowy.
I think if it had snowed one more time, many Marylanders would have been arrested for disturbing the peace. I know I might have been, as I would have been reduced to running screaming through the streets, waving my fist at the sky, and repeatedly yelling, “Stop it! Just stop it!”
Luckily, we didn’t get that far.
I came close recently, though, to screaming aloud at winter.
Why?
Because the cold-hearted witch killed my pool.
I’ve written about my pool many times over the years. It’s been the place where bugs go to die, where frogs go to procreate, and where one of my dogs once tried to ice skate.
A couple of winters ago, my dog, Riley, went outside—supposedly to go to the bathroom.
But it had snowed, and snow was all over our pool cover. So instead of just running on the deck that led up to the pool, he decided to walk across the snow and ice on it.
I saw this from my bedroom and nearly burst my lungs by yelling out the window, “Riley, get off that pool right now!!!”
I don’t think I had ever seen that dog move so fast, and I still haven’t.
My husband and I went out and gave him a lecture about the dangers of running on the frozen pool.
I’m not sure he understood anything except for when we yelled, “No!!!” and pointed to the pool, but it did the trick.
In fact, I think we scarred the little fuzzy guy for life, as he won’t even go near the pool when it’s warm out.
And if someone splashes water from the pool, he acts like it’s doggie kryptonite.
I guess I should have put that in the past tense, as no one will be splashing in our pool this summer.
Because of Old Lady Winter and her cruel, cruel ways…
We discovered our pool was, for all intents and purposes, dead when my husband and his friend went out a couple of weeks ago to remove the leaf net. The water on the top had finally thawed, and my husband wanted to empty out the leaves that had collected.
I knew something was up, when they both came to the front yard and approached me as I was filling up some bird feeders.
“Okay, what’s wrong?” I asked in my oh-so-positive way.
“It’s the pool,” my husband said. “It’s dead.”
He then explained how ice had pushed out the side, and there was a rust spot that couldn’t be patched anymore.
I thought I was okay with everything, but later that evening, I realized that I was sad.
It’s funny, really, because when we were first looking at this house, and we saw that it had an above-ground pool, we weren’t happy.
“I don’t want a pool,” I said.
“I don’t want one either,” my husband agreed. He also didn’t want to take care of one.
But that first summer, after he learned to balance the chemicals, he loved going in it. So did I. So did our relatives, friends, and neighbors. We have for the past several summers.
Now we’ll have to find something else to do.
As will the bugs, who will need to seek out another graveyard for their kin.
Joined by the frogs, who will need to head to the woods or some other happenin’ place that they can turn into an amphibious nightclub.
And as for Riley, well, he will be fine because he hated the pool anyway.
Hey…wait a minute. Riley hated the pool.
Gotta go. Seems like our fuzzy boy may just need another “talking to.”
Michele Wojciechowski, when she’s not becoming paranoid about other things her dog may have done over the years, writes “Wojo’s World®” from Baltimore.