Pool Dude: MIA

hmmmmm…. It’s 9 o’clock in the morning…

Got the right day?

Yep: it is Monday.

Pool dude is usually here and gone long  before this. If he’s been around, I sure haven’t seen him.

And if he had been around while I was here, Ruby would have alerted me. She is hopelessly in love with the man. Not only does she fly into a frenzy of joy when she sees him, but…she knows what day of the week it is.  And in the Canine Calendar, today is definitely Pool Dude Day.

How on earth that’s possible, I cannot imagine. But on Monday mornings, she’s standing by the glass sliding doors watching. And watching. And watching…waiting for the mysteriously beloved Pool Dude.

Most optimistic hope is that he had car trouble, or that some major hassle arose at an earlier customer’s place. But…I tried to call him earlier this week to ask about a question that arose, and got no answer. Left word on his machine: no call-back.

I take these developments as bad signs. Though he’s been reliable all these many weeks that he’s been working for me, at one point in the course of a conversation he did make some remarks that revealed he has a prison record.

That in itself is not enough to put me off. In fact, it explains why he’s trying to make a living in rather low-skill self-employment, since he seems to be a smart and self-sufficient kinda guy.

But the problem is, if he got busted for something — anything, no matter how minor — that will make big, BIG trouble for him. He may be in jail or under some kind of house arrest.

If that’s the case, pretty clearly it’s the end of his pool maintenance business.

And that makes his problem my problem…  Because he’s been doing an awe-inspiring job on the damn pool! The water is crystal clear and the system is running beautifully. That thing has never looked better or been cleaner, not since I’ve lived here.

The remains of three pool tabs were in the chlorine floater. So…well…in this heat, you wouldn’t THINK they’d last a whole week. But that would mean he must have shown up on some other day. I haven’t seen him…but anything’s possible.

I tried to phone him a few days ago: no answer. Left word on his voicemail: no return call.

Not. A. Good. Sign.

Welp. If Pool Dude has flaked out on us — and since nothing lasts forever, that’s surely a possibility — I’ll have to find a new guy ASAP. In this heat, that water can turn green overnight.

So, drat!  The pool is running fine right now, and should continue so for a week or ten days. But I don’t seem to have the required skill to keep it running clear and shiny.

While I’m traipsing around the city, then, I guess I’ll need to go by the Leslie’s Pool store in Sunnyslop — the best branch of that outfit I’ve found so far — and ask if they can recommend any customers who are in the pool maintenance business.

However…I fear Leslie’s itself does that, which means they’re not going to refer the competition to me. So THAT means I’ll have to put out yet another notice on the neighborhood Facebook page, begging for leads.

****

O Gawd! the guy at the credit union couldn’t get me into my bank account. He told me to go home and call thus-and-such an annoying number.

It’s 108 in the shade, with thunderheads building up to the north.

How can I COUNT the ways I don’t feel like getting on the phone to the CU’s representative?

Wait…how can I count the ways I ain’t a-gunna do it?

Stopped at the Sprouts next to the campus on the way home. Snabbed a package of lamb chops, a package of beef steak thingies. Fresh asparagus. Box of fresh bright-green spinach w/ which to make a salad. Fresh corn on the cob. Fresh bottle of cheap wine.

SCREW COMMERCE! By damn. I’m a-gunna eat myself stupid and then fall face-first into the sack.

The heat and the humidity defy belief. This feels like the shore of the endlessly effing Persian Gulf…which is another way to say you feel like you’re swimming through the air.

The last time I can remember this kind of heat, they shut down Sky Harbor because the jet airplanes couldn’t get enough lift from the hot air to take off safely. Or at all.