It was August and the dog days of summer were here. We were in the middle of a heat wave - it had been 100 degrees every day for a week with no end in sight. The weather was hotter and steamier than normal, and our apartment was like a brick oven. The heat was inescapable and it was really taking its toll on my sweetie. We had fans blowing all over the house - 4 box fans, 2 ceiling fans and 2 portable fans - and it was all for naught. They seemed to be generating more heat than breeze, and what breeze they did offer was like sticking your head in an oven. I swear I could hear my brain cells sizzling.
We were sitting in the house dripping sweat and trying to come up with an idea to beat the heat. Suddenly my sweetie spoke up. "Huh?" I didn't hear him over the sound of my own brain frying. "I said lets go for a ride in the car, we can at least run the air conditioning and cool off" he repeated. "Ahhh" I replied. I had another idea though, something a little more long term. "Let's buy a pool instead" I said. "No argument from me" he said. So we hopped in the car and went off in search of a pool. At this point I would have settled for a child's wading pool... As luck would have it, the store we went to was having an end of summer sale and I found us a decent sized pool. It was one of those inflatable ring pools - 12 feet wide and 3 feet deep. We raced back home to set it up.
Upon our return, we discovered that neither of us had the lung power to inflate the ring and the bicycle pump we had wasn't cutting it either, it was exhausting trying to pump it up by hand - so I ran back to the store and bought a small electric pump. Meanwhile, my sweetie went to work getting the pool pump assembled and attached. I quickly got back with the air pump and after filling the ring we turned on the garden hose. Then we sat and watched and waited. An hour later, the water was barely a foot deep and I started wondering if we couldn't get the fire department out here with a bigger hose. Finally I couldn't wait another minute longer - ready or not, I was getting in that damned pool! I jumped in and immediately shrieked - OMFG!!! The water was arctic!!! I mean seriously cold - like members of the Polar Bear club would have dipped a toe in and said 'No freaking way'. One thing was certain though, I was no longer hot. I got back out as quickly as I had hopped in and stood by my sweetie, shivering. "Feel better?" he asked laughing at me. "I advise you to wait until the sun warms the water up a little" I said. "No problem" says he...
Neither of us had any idea how long it was going to take to fill that pool. At 1am it still wasn't full! At that point, we turned the hose off and decided we'd finish filling it the next day. In the morning after another hour and a half of running the hose, it was finally done! It was supposed to be over 100 degrees again and we decided to wait just a little bit for the water to warm up. By afternoon, the sun was high in the sky and we couldn't wait anymore. The pool thermometer said 88 degrees. I hopped in and immediately submerged - holy shit! It was still pretty brisk initially, but after sitting in the water a few minutes it was heaven. I wanted to live in it. My sweetie finally hopped in as well, but to him the water felt a lot colder than it actually was. He didn't have an ounce of fat left on him to protect him from the cold, so he didn't stay in long. I suggested an inflatable pool raft so he could dangle his legs in the water without freezing to death. So my sweetie ran off to the store in search of one. He returned a short while later with more inflatable pool crap than would actually fit in the pool and I made a crucial discovery about inflatable ring pools. Never, EVER(!) push down on the ring! I was trying to hop up onto my little raft while unaware I was too near the edge and accidentally pushed down on the ring. WHOOOSH!!!! Water started pouring out like Niagara Falls and I went right out of the pool, raft and all, hitting the ground hard. Ouch. Shit! Did anyone see that? If they did, they were managing to stifle their laughter. I pulled the ring back up, stopping the flow of water. No harm done, just a slightly bruised ego. I made sure to warn my sweetie against trying to board the raft too near the ring. I decided to forgo the rafts myself, with the slightly lower water level I could sit on the bottom of the pool and the water came to just under my chin.
It got the job done and when we went back into the house it felt about 20 degrees cooler in there. And that was how we got through the rest of the heat wave. As soon as we were feeling too warm, we'd go out and dunk ourselves in the pool a few times and cool off again. His mom thought we were geniuses. Overall, it was the best money I ever spent - I just wished I'd thought of it sooner. A week or two later, the heat wave finally let up. Autumn was just around the corner.
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