The Wages of Loafing

So I had this great idea, some months ago, to facilitate my loafing ambitions: Hire a pool guy to take care of the hole in the ground into which you pour money!

Grand scheme, isn’t it? I’m already pouring money into it. What’s a few more bucks a month to get someone else to do all the scutwork? These guys bring their own chemicals — the cost is part of the monthly fee. So mirabilis! I would never have to see the inside of another Leslie’s Pool store! 😀

Mwa ha ha! Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Well, o’course…its success is predicated on several premises

• that once a week cleaning and chemical balancing will suffice
• that a pool dude knows what he’s doing
• that such a creature will scrub down the decorative tiles whenever he surfaces
• that the guy is using quality chemicals, and enough of them
• that he’ll clean out the filter every three or four months

Heh! Sounds good, doesn’t it?

In real life, none of these things apply.

I have not seen that guy backwash the filter even once during the several months that I’ve been hiring him.  The pool walls look fairly clean and algae-free, but the row of decorative tiles is CRUSTED in white lime, all the way around. This indicates that the water is too alkaline. And also that the tiles aren’t getting brushed properly.

So this afternoon it was into the drink with a paint scraper in hand. Scritched and scratched and scraped and scraped and SCRAPED until a mass on incoming storm clouds rolled in. It looked pretty good by the time I got all the way around…

Until…

The tiles dried off.

I didn’t even BEGIN to get the stuff off. Just went out there and took a look…and…if anything the white crust looks WORSE instead of better.

Jayzus!

Cleaning that tilework is going to be a MONSTROUSLY expensive project. In fact, they’re looking so bad and the deposits are so thick, I may have to replace the tiles.

This, just over the winter months. Last summer, I would scrub them a bit whenever I was in the drink — at least once a day. But over the cold months, THAT MUCH calcium built up.

It’s pretty much all my fault, of course. I should have been paying more attention, and not just assumed the guy was doing his job and doing it right.

That was what we might best describe as a totally wrong assumption. That kind of calcium build-up results from less than perfect chemical balance…and I’ve been stupidly assuming that the guy I hired to do a monthly pool service knew what he was doing. And would do it;

WRONG.

At any rate, by the time I got back in the house from scraping the tiles with a razorblade — a futile effort, far’s I can see — Swimming Pool Service & Repair was closed. They’re the best pool repair shop in town. If anyone can clean those tiles and restore the filter & pump, it’s those guys.

So tomorrow at the crack of dawn I’ll have to get through to them and try to get them out here at the soonest possible moment.

Meanwhile, I’m gonna have to go back to the doctors. This Whatever-It-Is Bug has produced so much chest congestion I can’t inhale a deep breath, and I’m coughing constantly. To perfect that situation, somehow I’ve LOST my real thermometer — the mercury thermometer, that is. The only one I have left is a digital thermometer, whose accuracy  (IMHO) is highly questionable. NOOO idea where I put the real thermometer…it must have fallen into the trash or something.

Heh heh…Look at this clown, leading the cops a merrie chase through the L.A. area. Where does he think he is? Phoenix? 😀

As nothing compared with an Arizona driver, though. Drat! We’re only ranked 8th worst in the nation? We’ll have to work on that!