Sorry Saturday

I stand corrected; your weekend can get even more shitty despite the fact that EMS and/or Poe-poes are not involved. For starters, I ended up slicing the bottom of my foot Friday evening, which did not warrant a hospital trip, but made my evening none the brighter. In the morning I took things slow (processing 6 cans of natty light tends to make my body a bit lethargic), and though I awoke at 7am in order to take out my dog, I found myself awoken by my phone at 10am. It was Mom, and instead of gleeful puppydog tales, she relayed that she and Dad got into a fight (OH WAIT! I almost forgot that adults get into heated discussions, not fights) which found her driving back to Padre at 11pm the previous night. She also told me that my aunt's ailing dog, who had an enlarged heart and many breathing problems, had passed away in my Grandmother's arms b/c at the time of her dog's slow, internal asphyxiation, my aunt was out shopping and had asked my grandmother to sit with her moribund pet. She also relayed that my grandmother was very upset from having to witness it.

This was my Saturday morning wake-up call! Whatever happened to mom waking me up on Saturdays to cheerfully announce "The Smurfs are on!"? So I'm at my grandma's house by noon, and at my home by 1. I talked to pool guy and had gotten my water all checked out. It turns out that there's no chlorine in the pool (like at all) so this may not be a case of algae, but one of sheer neglect. He also tells me that while I am welcome at any time, my renter has rubbed him the wrong way on more than one occasion (being either dismissive or accusatory), and that if her demeanor continues he will have to ask her to take her patronage elsewhere. Many of you might say "So what? He said you're cool, right?" To that I will relay: SEGUIN IS SMALL! There are two pool stores, and so if she goes to the other one and pisses them off too, it's going to be the "1603 River St. pool" that's going to suffer, not her. I assure him that I will let her know the old golden rule/you-can-catch-more-ants-with-honey goes much farther, no matter what town she's in.

Off I go to save my pool. Well, not before I drop $290 on the work that was done on the pool in early August, and also purchasing more algaecide and shock. I did this will the full intent of telling them these costs were coming out of their deposits, or could be repaid to me directly, whichever they preferred. Damn good thing I waiting on sending out THOSE e-mails…it turns out that the water has no chemicals in it b/c the skimmer/filter area is clogged; the chemicals are being placed in the right area, but they're not being introduced to the OTHER 16,000 gallons of water that constitute my pool.

So I call Steve (pool guy) and tell him this with a heavy heart, knowing that he's about to close for the day in the next 30 minutes. Not only is he extraordinarily busy, but I am extraordinarily broke, so we're both losers in this one. He then says I should be able to unclog it myself by purchasing a device called a "Drain King", which is just a bladder (rubber ballooney-type thing) on one end, and a place to screw in a water hose on the other end. Using this correctly will build up water pressure causing the leaves/detritus to be safely blown from the pipe thereby purging the obstruction. OR, if you're me (which I am) it causes a tiny explosion in your filter when the water pressure is too great and the twelve dollar part you just purchased is blown to smithereens.

During this whole process I'm having to mentally deal with the following issues:
1) It isn't my renter's fault, unless she's been stuffing cement down this tube, which I could never prove. She was trying to clean up the pool but didn't know that a pipe was clogged. Like the septic tank, regardless of the why or how, I'm responsible for the "what now?"

2) If I can't clear this pipe, trying to put even more chemicals into the pool isn't going to help anything. This means another potential trip to Seguin, which isn't awful, but I want to be committed to living in San Marcos. I don't want to be in Seguin every week, or even every month. I have get used to being on my own, and by that I mean REALLY on my own.

3) I have to pee. While I have the key to my own house, and no one else is there, I just don't feel right going in there when my renters aren't there. It's not my space anymore, and I would feel awful if I knew that someone had been in my apt. when I wasn't there. But then do I go in a bush? Which is more respectful: peeing in their yard or peeing in their bathroom?

I decided to go back to Home Depot, purchase another bladder to fix the pool, drain my own bladder, and give this thing one more shot. From what Steve had told me, there are two points at which you can attempt to clear the line, and if one doesn't work you can try the other. I was on "the other" but it was so named b/c he wasn't exactly sure which pipe on the far end I would need to flush (there were two pipes per point). I figured I had chosen the wrong one pipe and would feel really stupid if I had gotten everything else right, but stuck it in the wrong pipe. Well, not just stupid, it was going to cost me a hell of a lot more than twelve bucks times two to get Steve out there to fix it.

I tried again but chose the pipe to the right. This time I stay away from the affair, but once again crank up the water pressure as Steve, and the instructions, state. Kablooey number two stung exponentially. Now I KNOW I can't fix it, I'm out $25, and the exposure to the hyper-chlorinated water trapped in the skimmer had not only ruined my t-shirt, since the sleeve was now bleached white, it also bleached the hairs on my left arm, then caused them all to break off. Though at first it felt like a perk, after having looked at my right arm I remembered: I HATE ASYMMETRY! Add a bottle of Nair to the cost of the latest home repair disaster.

I still don't know whether or not this is simply a matter of a blocked pipe or something more sinister, but what I do know is that my looking forward to this weekend was about as fruitless as hiring a Chippendale's dancer to perform for Ellen Degeneres. Please, please, oh please Sunday! Save my weekend!