Monday, March 02, 2009

Poo is for the Birds




“Why did they close the pool, Mommy?”

“Well, Danny, they had to close the pool because they found some poo in the pool.”
Danny wrinkled his nose in appropriate disgust.
“Sometimes this happens, though,” Mommy continued.

PP glanced down at her chocolate brownie cliff bar and felt a slight wave of nausea as she finished her last bite.





Mommy had a mission, though, and that mission was to soothe Danny so he wouldn’t start crying cause the pool was closed. (Fortunately, PP had already swum and so was spared the trauma of being ejected from the pool in midswim because of a Brown Alert. Though as DHBF pointed out between bites of chewy pooh, no, chewy cliff bar, who knows how long the poo had been there. It coulda been there while they’d been swimming for all they knew.)

PP didn’t want to think about it.

But was being forced to because of Danny.
“You remember Uncle Josh?” Mommy had her telling a story for a message voice on.
“Yeah.”
“When he was very young, younger than you even, he pooed in the pool.”
Danny made a suitable yuck face.
“And we all had to get out of the pool and Uncle Josh felt very bad that he’d pooed in the pool...”
”Why did he poo in the pool, Mommy?”
“That’s a good question, Danny. Sometimes these things just happen. They can’t be helped.”
“So is that what happened today? Did Uncle Josh poo in the YMCA Pool?”
Mommy chuckled, shaking her head, “Oh, Danny. You’re so funny. No of course not. You know that’s not possible. Uncle Josh isn’t even here. That story I told you was from a very long time ago. Before you were even born...”
Danny nodded as he leaned,longingly, into the foggy glass barrier above the now empty pool as Stacked Lifeguard dipped the long net into the far corner of the pool to scoop up the poo. (Or at least this is what it looked like. It was hard to believe that this was in the lifeguard's job description--Poo Retrieval!)

“Can we go swimming now?” Danny asked.

“No, honey, that’s what I’ve been trying to explain. They have to keep the pool closed for the next 24 hours and clean it out and then tomorrow you can go swimming.”
Danny sighed heavily. He really wanted to swim. PP got this and was glad that her swim was finished even if she had been poo pool exposed.
“But listen, Danny, you know what we can do? We can go down to the lake and look at the birds. What do you think of that?”
Danny shrugged. Birds weren’t quite what he had in mind. How could such an outing to view our feathered friends compare with a swim?

PP watched as Mommy took Danny by the hand and led him out of the Y lobby , Danny craning his neck to get one last glimpse of the pool.

Hell, it looked okay from his vantage point. Why couldn’t he go swimming?

Oh, yeah, it was that Stupid Uncle Josh. Well. Next time he saw him he was gonna ask him why he pooed in the pool.

Until then, he’d just have to make do with the birds.
And you all know what can happen with them....don't you?

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