Times have
been tough lately. Fresh out of college,
no jobs for a philosophy major in this economy.
So when my cousin Fred in Orange County offered me a job at the pool
cleaning service he works for, I couldn’t say no. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know the first thing
about taking care of a pool, but if Fred can do it, it shouldn’t be too difficult. I learned quickly enough (memorizing heater
specs is nothing compared to Sartre) and was soon on my first assignment. Fred had warned me that the customers were
freaky, but I had no idea what I was in for.
My first
job was at one o’clock, and, in typical Southern California fashion, the sun
was scorching. The house was a simple
two-story family home in the middle of suburbia, green lawn, nice car, clean
pool, almost the archetype of the typical suburban home. I pulled the white pickup truck alongside the
curb, grabbed the chemicals and skimmer from the bed, and went around the side
of the house to the backyard. The pool
was, I roughly estimated, forty by fifteen feet, with a maximum depth of
between nine and twelve feet. It was
surrounded by a gate, which is highly recommended to prevent tragic
accidents. My skimmer was already in the
pool when I realized that the client (one Mrs. Benson, according to the billing
information), was sunbathing on a lounge chair, on the concrete about ten feet
from the pool. She was wearing a red bikini,
sunglasses and wide-brimmed hat, a bottle of suntan lotion on the ground
next to the chair. She noticed me
looking at her, raised her head and smiled, waved. I waved back.
She called
out, “I hope you don’t mind if I watch.”
“Not at
all,” I called back. It’s good to see a
homeowner take an active interest in their pool’s maintenance. The surface of the water was spotted with
clusters of leaves, which are best to remove before adding chemicals. I realized soon on that watching the skimmer
glide across the water was relaxing, almost hypnotic even. I walked around the pool, the little blue net
filling with soaked foliage, until I got to the filter, which I realized was
directly in front of Mrs. Benson. It was
also broken, and I leant down to check it.
This got Mrs. Benson’s attention, as she propped herself up on an elbow
to get a better look. This filled me
with a sense of anticipation; if I couldn’t fix the filter, with a pool-owner
as astute as Mrs. Benson, I could be in for a hard time back at the
office.
Mrs. Benson
got up from the lounge chair and walked over to me, putting a hand on my
shoulder. “What seems to be the problem,”
she said, kindly.
“It looks
like the filter’s broken,” I said, “It’s probably blocked at the pump, Mrs.
Benson.”
“Please,”
she said, “Call me Anne, and it hasn’t been Mrs. for months,” she smiled.
I smiled
back. “I’ll be sure to change the
billing info to ‘Miss’,” I said, looking around for the pump. It was near the side of the house opposite
from the side I entered from, so I walked over there, followed, to my surprise,
by Anne. I was sweating pretty badly by
this point, and was tempted when Anne suggested I take my shirt off. Unfortunately, I burn very easily, and the
sun tan lotion by the lounge chair has a disastrously low SPF.
“Sooo…”
Anne said as I squatted down next to the pump, “this problem with the
pump. Does it look hard?”
“Too soon
to tell,” I said, “I’m going to need to open her up and have a look inside.”
“Do you
have a special tool for that?” she said.
“Sure do,”
I said, reaching into one of the pockets on my khaki shorts.
“Can I
touch it?” she asked, “Your tool I mean?”
I stood up,
and turned around. She was rubbing her
hands along the sides of her torso. “Sure,” I said, “hold out your hand.” She placed her hand palm up about waist
height, which struck me as odd as I handed her my wrench. She looked at it, even though she was wearing
sunglasses, I could tell she was squinting her eyes in confusion. “It’s a Foreman 3/8 inch standard wrench,” I
said. She looked at me like I was an
idiot, then it hit me. “Oh!” I said, feeling
like a complete fool. I took the wrench
back and started fumbling around with my shorts. It took me a moment, but I found it and got
it out.
The filter
uses metric nuts, and there I was like an idiot with a 3/8 inch wrench. I showed her the adjustable wrench. “Sorry,” I said, her face still shocked by my
rookie mistake, “I’m new at this.”
Fixing the pump was a piece of cake, but Anne still seemed put off by my
mistake with the wrench.
“Sorry
again,” I said. “I’m a bit nervous, but I
swear, I’m all business.”
She seemed
to respond well to my reassurances, and her face lit up with a smile. “This is
your first time?” she said, stepping a little closer to me.
“Yeah,” I
said, “There’s a big difference between practicing alone and actually doing it
with someone else there. You know,
theory versus practice and all that.”
Anne nodded
emphatically, “I know just what you mean.”
She leaned over and whispered into my ear, her breath hot and moist, “How
about some practice, then?”
I
nodded. My bucket with the chemical
containers was sitting unattended and unused on the other side of the pool, and
here I was chatting. Time to put my
training into practice. Anne seemed flustered
when I had finished adding in the chemicals and said my goodbyes. In hindsight, her behavior throughout the
entire ordeal had been odd. I guess Fred
was right about the customers being freaky.
