A couple posts back I reprinted a quote from Vicious Victoria, or whatever she calls herself, about above ground pools and tramps representing white trash. I mean tramps, the kind you jump on trampolines.

If you have kids 8 – 14 years old, an above ground pool is a GREAT way to spend your money. I don’t feel the same about trampolines. Trampolines just don’t have the long lasting entertainment value. After a dozen jumps what’s left? Do you want a half dozen kids in your back yard on a tramp? Two seem to be the max at one time, so the others are pretty much bored, or arguing over who goes next.

I realize a kid 8 – 14 can dive in a pool and break a neck, but adults have been known to dive into 4 foot pools too. *ahem* me. So there are safety hazards.

But having the kids gather in our yard to swim, with limitations on the numbers, is better than having our kids at somebody else’s house doing whatever.

Plus: getting a teenage girl to babysit on Saturday and/or Sunday for hours while we played golf was a piece of cake. Back in the day, baking to a crispy golden brown in the real sun was the only way to get a tan. No chemicals, no tanning beds. It took hours of laborious laying around for days. It was hot work too. Being able to roll off the deck into a pool every few minutes made the teenage girls living next door very happy to babysit for us.

I actually enjoyed cleaning the pool too.

When it was time to clean the pool, I would tell the kids to make a whirlpool by everybody running in the same direction along the circumference of the pool. When four or six kids start running they can get that water into a nice whirlpool. Then we made a game out of jumping out one at a time so the whirlpool wasn’t slowed down.

How does that help cleaning the pool? All the hair, yes, girls with long hair exposed to massive amounts of chlorine for hours everyday, lose a lot of hair, and other debris – leaves, underwater toys, and beer bottles would be swept to the middle of the pool.

After the raging whirlpool was calm, I would ease myself in with the long hose and carefully vacuum a relatively small area!

No kids. Just me. Usually about 7 or 8 p.m. Then it was adult swim. Or adult float-around-on-air-mattresses, catching a smooch as we floated by each other.

I bet our kids were in the best shape of their lives during this period too. Literally hours splashing around ended with the total aerobic whirlpool exercise. They still stayed up until all hours during the summer, but they seemed to be much more mellow after swimming all day.

Don’t think those POOLS INSTALLED FOR JUST $499 have been lost on us.

If I just had somebody to jump in and make a whirlpool for me daily!

Out of nowhere, my thighs started to spasm. Panicked, I looked up from my book to see if anyone was watching me. Luckily, everyone was obediently reading or sleeping, so I was free to conduct my mini break down in relative peace. With a choking sigh, I slumped over on my desk and forced myself to breath slowly.

Violent Acres weighs in on body image. Since she doesn’t allow commenting, feel free to spout off here.

Anna disagreed and as I carefully combed through her brilliantly bouncy locks, she pouted. “I wish I had straight like you!”

Shocked, I insisted, “But Anna! Your hair is gorgeous! I would die for hair like yours!”

With a perplexed sigh, she told me, “V! Don’t you know all the straights want to be curlys and all the curlys want to be straights?”

Ironical ad on her site – it’s a CURLY:

click to expand

It’s been roughly a week since I started my Birthday Charity Challenge and here are the results so far. As you can see, we have raised about $3,577. It’s also clear that paypal royally sucks.

His assertion was those who read my website worshiped me and would listen to anything I said. I told him he shouldn’t be fooled. My audience is a fickle bunch who would turn their collective backs on me the very second I wrote something disagreeable.

I read the post and am just totally flummoxed. But it was entertaining to wander all over her noggin.

UPDATE: Violent Acres missed the boat. A guy just published a book A$$hole: How I Got Rich and Happy by Not Giving a Damn About Anyone and How You Can Too.