Lost in the Flood

It became a quest. I was going to get that pool to stand no matter what. If my family wanted a pool then, by golly, that was what was going to happen.

I awoke this morning to these words from my wife - "Let's not even try to fill it again. Take it out of the backyard."

I felt a little like the Chevy Chase character in Vacation at that point. I nearly quoted his famous line when I said - "No, you will be swimming in that thing. You're all going to have so much fun swimming that your going to be whistling zippity-do-da out of your asses."

So, I went back to work - with most of yesterday's water gone down the ravine in the back of the house, I re-positioned everything. We blew up the sides to give it more strength - and back in went the hose. For four hours that hose pumped and those walls held.

I glanced out the window just before supper and clearly visualized the kids playing, the dogs bantering about, and a bright rainbow overhead.

I was actually looking out the window when the side shifted.

"Shit!" I ran outside with the dogs trailing close behind. This was the fullest the pool had ever been. I scrambled into position behind the failing wall and pulled with all of my might. I tried to shove the four-by-four underneath.

All at once, the skies opened and a voice that I imagined to be God's filled my head.

"F--k it," he said.

I let go and the wall gave way. The water raced through our swing set area and down the bank. The son-of-bitching pool emptied faster than the stadium at halftime of a blowout Bills game.

The voice from above began to laugh.

I grabbed my cellphone as the water cascaded through the backyard, taking all of my landscaping stones from the swing set area into the ravine below.

"We lost it," I said.

"The pool?" Kathy asked. "Really? What happened?"

"It doesn't matter anymore," I said. "It's over."

"Well, for the record," she said. "You were right and I was wrong."

I hope it snows tomorrow.