POOLING YOUR RESOURCES

I am a construction genius.

If you are designing an entire city, you should hire me to construct the place. I base this on the fact that, for the first time ever, I successfully created and completed a home improvement project, something that has avoided me for my entire adult life.

I have tried projects numerous times. I have also been cut, bruised, shocked, burned and, on one occasion, stuck on a roof. Every time I would start doing something, I would back myself into a corner and wait until someone of competence would help me out.

But I guess if you try something enough times, you eventually have the law of averages in your favor. The particular project that I conquered involved weighting down my pool cover. I bought a pool cover a couple of years ago after a winter of cleaning pine straw out of 40-degree water.

The pool cover is just an enormous sheet of vinyl that you stretch over the pool. To ensure that it does not become an enormous sail that smacks into the side of your neighbor's house, you are supposed to weight down the sides. The most common method of this is water bags, which are bags filled with, you guessed it, molten steel. No, kidding, of course. Water is the weight of choice. They are about eight feet long and sit on the edges of the cover, keeping it down during especially blustery days. They work quite well until the first windy day, at which point sticks, pine cones, small pets, etc. rain down on them, puncturing them in various spots. Each water bag comes with a little repair kit. That would be fine if (a) you could actually find where all of the leaks were and (b) there were usually around 65,000 puncture marks. After about a day of having the bags out there, the water had drained out of many of them, and I basically had loose plastic weighting down the cover. Not exactly the most effective method. It was like having empty garbage bags as weights.

So I was in a home improvement store when genius struck. I walked past the aisle with the PVC pipe, and it occurred to me that, hey, these things were MADE to hold water! I could buy some caps for these things, fill them with water, and BOOM! Instant, permanent unstoppable pool cover weights.

At that point, my daughter assisted with the design process by knocking one of the pipes out of its rack, sending it rolling down the aisle. It occurred to me at that point that it would probably be a good idea to secure them in place somehow, lest they all end up concentrated at the middle of the pool cover, gradually making it collapse in on itself.

I considered putting little wooden wedges down on either side, but figured there was too good of a chance that they would come free. So, I fired up the inspiration function once again, and it occurred to me that for a few dollars, I could buy some heavy duty Ziploc bags and a bag of play sand. I could fill up the bags half-way with sand, and rest two under each pipe. The pipes would be solidly anchored in their little sand nests. I decided to complete the package by buying some spray paint that would match the color of the pool cover. It would all blend seamlessly.

When I got home, I was very excited. My wife and I had this conversation:

ME: I found a great way to replace the pool cover bags!

MY WIFE: How?

ME: PVC pipe, Ziploc bags and sand!

MY WIFE: Sigh.

Eventually, I got her on board and convinced her to take a wait-and-see approach. And, much to my surprise, once I assembled the pieces and applied the paint, the weights actually blended right in, and I have to say it actually looks better than it did with the water bags. Granted, it will probably look even better when I get some more paint and finish where I ran out. But the ones that are painted are just ducky, to say the least.

In the end, while you may not see this as an impressive accomplishment, I consider it to be monumental. Maybe I have finally crossed the threshold and am ready to move on to bigger things. When can I start on your city? I hope you like PVC pipe.