Invisible Pools

Saturday was to be a most amazing day for the Tiny Terrorists. We had invited MacGyver over with her little man to swim at the pool. Being that the temps have been 100 + for a while now, so a day at the pool and then grilling hot dogs with friends sounded fabulous.

Saturday the Tiny Terrorists slept in to an obscene 8 am! Yes I was shocked they would allow themselves to sleep so darn late (sarcasm). After watching cartoons for an appropriate amount of time, I bribed the offspring with the offer of WAFFLES from Waffle House for breakfast. This worked and they got dressed pretty quick, little did they know that after WAFFLES, we’d be heading to HELL IT’S SELF! WALMART ON A SATURDAY!

Actually the Wally-World trip was pain free and relatively whine-free– I think a massive sugar rush for the progeny kept them in good moods. After frivolously blowing most of my measly pay check on essentials like FOOD and GAS, we headed home to prepare for the arrival of MacGyver and Little Man. They arrived right on time with hot dog buns and bagged salad in hand. We all slipped into swim suits and sun block and headed to the pool… and THIS is where the REAL adventure began.

We got to the gate and found it locked, so we walked around to the other entrance and found it also locked. No sign, just LOCKED. I found this perplexing as it was 100 outside and a weekend and one would think that when it’s been 100 + for so damn long that people would make certain that the pool would be open especially on the weekend. I went to the office to ask WTF? And was told that something was fucked with the chemicals and it would be open Tuesday or so. Awww damn.

I informed the group of the unfortunate circumstances and we went back to me casa. Somewhere on the 3 minute walk, I had an epiphany as I remembered that the fine city of M has at least ONE public pool. Once seated comfortably in front of my computer I found the city web site and the link to the aquatic centers. It showed two pools VERY CLOSE to me. I called each to find out the rates - $2.00 for adults $1.25 for kids – and the hours and then we headed off. One was on Louisiana Ave. and the other was off McDonald. We headed for the one of Louisiana – heading directly for where the nice person who answered the phone told us to go to. Suddenly Louisiana turned into Greenville and it never did cross Hwy 5! We were perplexed. MacGyver and I both knew were this intersection was supposed to be (or so we thought) and there was NO signs of a public pool anywhere.

We headed off towards the other location. We drove down McDonald until we were quite certain we weren’t in the fine city of M anymore. We drove back. We circled. We looked. We finally gave up because we’d been driving around for an hour in a 4 mile area. The Tiny Terrorists and Little Man were getting restless. We headed back towards Casa de Karmically Challenged amid a chorus of disappointed little voices.

Upon return to the Casa, a check of the almighty and all powerful Mapquest revealed two things 1) the city of M was designed by either sadistic bastards or retarded monkeys… er.. Um, I mean apparently someone thought it was a really good idea to have Louisiana to turn into Greenville but if you turn on Throckmorton you will find Louisiana again. There’s this whole section of Louisiana that’s not connected to Louisiana for some jacked up reason. AND that apparently someone has a really sick sense of humor as the location on Mapquest for the other pool is either at the city cemetery or at the city dump which is behind the cemetery, I have no idea but I’m now morbidly curious to see this as I now how images of Poltergeist going through my head (it’s cool, I love that movie).

Since we were back at Casa de Karmically Challenged I figured we might as well get the grillin’ started! I dumped what looked to me to be a proper amount of charcoal in the grill and liberally doused it with charcoal lighter fluid then lit it. I have to say, I have the feeling that I just MIGHT have put too much of the charcoal lighter on them as they were not only completely engulfed in flames within 30 seconds but the flames were shooting up from the grill about 3 feet. No matter, the charcoal was ready REALLY fast and that meant the hot dogs were ready really fast.

After dinner I gave the kids cupcakes, because ya know, everybody loves sugared up kids!

The evening was a success even if the Little People never could get the Little Man’s name right. Thankfully Sunday morning they slept in to a surprising 8 am.