To our fellow residents of Pinecone Meadows, thank you—truly—for your patience, your support, and your passive-aggressive Facebook posts over the last seven weeks. This journey has been long, chlorinated, and emotionally complex. However, as of 9:47 this morning, we have drained, deflated, and folded our ten-foot above-ground inflatable pool.
It is over.
The pool, which originally entered our lives during a late-night online purchase (sponsored ad, weak moment, 12 percent off), served us well on that almost-hot Saturday in May. Since then, it has mostly existed as a large, algae-tinged monument to optimism and poor impulse control.
We understand that some of you had… opinions.
Yes, we saw the Nextdoor thread titled: “Biodegradable Bog Forming on Alder Street?”
Yes, we received the handwritten letter that simply read: MOSQUITOES.
Yes, we heard the child whispering, “Mommy, is that where the witches live?” while walking past our yard.
We also heard the joy. The laughter. The splashing. The moment when our dog, Cinnamon, mistook the pool for an oversized water bowl and cannonballed in with the elegance of a confused walrus.
We didn’t plan for the green water, the mold halo, or the way the pool began to develop its own microclimate. We tried shocking it. We tried draining it halfway and then pretending that counted. At one point, we just dumped in half a bottle of Sprite and whispered, “Do your thing.”
The pool began attracting attention—not just from neighbors, but also from local birds, a raccoon, and once, horrifyingly, a pair of jeans. We don’t know where the jeans came from. We didn’t ask. You don’t ask the pool questions.
Our marriage was tested. One of us wanted to drain it weeks ago. The other kept saying, “It’s fine—it’s only weird if you look at it.” We won’t say who said what, but let’s just say someone is now sleeping on the couch, and someone else has developed an unshakable fear of frogs.
We held on as long as we could.
But yesterday, a concerned teenager—possibly yours, we’re not naming names—left a sign on our front lawn that simply said: PLEASE STOP. THIS IS SAD NOW.
So today, we let it go. It took two hours, three buckets, one screaming hose, and the realization that the pool water was now the same color as Mountain Dew Code Red.
To those who worried we’d try to put it back up next year, fear not. The pool has been folded, bagged, and placed in the attic, where it is quietly leaking on our Christmas decorations.
We move forward now. Pool-less, perhaps. But not joyless.
Until the Slip ’N Slide arrives next week.
Warmest regards,
The Mitchells
(Pool Survivors)