Move Over, Macguyver!

Its hot. Damn hot. I have all three kids this week and its a veritable heat wave (they said so on Channel 3 so you know its true!!) and I'm trying not to rely heavily on AC or mall walking to stay cool!!

This morning a thought came into my mind. I should have ignored it. But as I had almost zero sleep last night due to neighborhood fireworks keeping baby up well past midnight (I think she was freaked out even beyond the time they were actually setting them off) my mouth and brain were not communicating properly.

That thought (sorry for the suspense wow lol) was "Hey I should go get a kiddie pool for these guys and put it out back on the porch!" I said it out loud, it was heard by Alicia, and cemented into reality.

We took a trip to the Dollar General. They had an 8 ft round pool that said "Easy setup! Fill with water within MINUTES!" It neglected to say how MANY minutes. It was not the cheapest thing (which honestly, you get what you pay for with cheap pools so in my opinion its worth it) and it showed 6 kids and an adult inside all having a blast. Now, I have had kiddie pools in the past and they usually don't last very long. But this heat just made me ignore all that intelligence and I bought it. We'll be eating leftovers this week.

I brought it inside and it said to inflate the outer top ring. I started blowing it up by mouth and after about 10 seconds of that foolishness I started swearing. When I'm tired I have a hard time not reverting to IBM Potty Mouth. Alex quickly ran up stairs and brought down an air pump my dad left here. He has learned to anticipate my needs. What a good boy. The only problem with the air pump was it was missing it's attachment that you would use to blow up something with a small intake valve. Oh and it had no batteries and takes 4 D size. Ok so that's two problems. Also, the pretty picture on the inner instructions also showed a white pump system that cleans the water. No where in the box did I find this pump. The box is so small I have no idea how they crammed that huge pool into it. I went back over to the DG and asked the clerk where the pump was or if they had one you had to buy separately. She passed the buck to another clerk, who passed the buck to another clerk, who had no clue. They said to call the 800 number on the box. Yeah like I'm gonna do that. I decided to buy the batteries and just deal with the dirt.

So now I'm back home, and I remember there is no attachment on the air pump. I am not about to let a little technicality like that get in my way. I search the house first for the damn attachment, no luck. Then I switch to survival mode. Wracking my brain (sounds like it hurts, and you are right) I thought of potential items that I could use instead of the real thing. I pondered briefly about making a valve out of playdoh, or gum, or maybe taking a pen and removing the innards. Then I thought of a funnel. While looking for said funnel I stumbled upon Macguyver GOLD! A turkey baster!!!!

Alex played me the "Pool Inflatin' Blues"

I removed the useless bulb on the end (I didn't even know I had one of the damn things) and it fit perfectly over the end of the pump. It was not airtight so I took Alex's mantra "Duct tape fixes everything" and wrapped the duct tape around the crack. VOILA!!



I shoved the pointy end of the turkey baster into the air hole of the pool and cranked the air pump on.

Delight filled my soul while I watched the pool get bigger and bigger...

DING DONG (my doorbell, not me)

My neighbor came over to tell me that despite all my hard work and brilliant ideas, he had the exact same pool already set up with the pump and ready to go and the kids could just jump in there any time they want.

BUZZKILL. I thanked him for his offer, tried to decline as I had gone through so much to get mine going, but he insisted. So now I have a perfectly good pool (I deflated it after all that) that I can't get back in the damn box and probably can't return the way it is. I contemplate cleaning out a large portion of the basement and setting it up down there but have a feeling that would result in another blog post and I just don't have the time ;)