From the Crow’s Nest
by CLINT YOUNTS
It’s early May, and we’ve already had triple digit temperatures out at the Crow’s Nest. If we don’t get some good rain right soon, we’ll be baking like a tick on a camel’s hump. By June, it’ll be hotter than Osama bin Laden’s pitchfork. Texans will be sweating more than a West Texas fireman. Yep, it’s gonna be one hot summer.
It’s a good thing that we have a swimming pool in our back yard. There’s nothing more refreshing after mowing the dirt than gulping down a cold beer and plopping into the pool. As most owners of a swimming pool know, the only problem with having a pool, besides spending a small fortune on chemicals and new floats to replace the ones blown into the prickly pear patch, is having people ask to come swimming. Now I don’t mind having friends and family come over occasionally for a sip and dip at the Crow’s Nest, but some folks may think one invitation is actually a season pass. I’m sure some of you pool owners out there have neighbors dropping by that you haven’t seen in about 9 or 10 months.
I bet you wish you could come up with excuses to dole out to those sweaty neighbors who just said, “Hot enough fer ya?” while staring at your Caribbean-like hideaway in your back yard. Do you wish you could think of something clever to say that would discourage some perspiring pork-belly from ever plopping his hairy butt in your pristine pool? Maybe something that is so disgusting that word will circulate throughout the region that your pool is as inhospitable as a Days Inn in Abbottabad.
Can’t think of anything off the top of your head? Well, sir, you are in luck. Just for you and all other pool owners who share this predicament, you have a source for some really disgusting, bile-raising excuses for not allowing anyone to swim in your pool. Straight from the Crow’s Nest, here are some great excuses for keeping unwanted visitors out of your swimming pool this summer:
• “Once that huge raccoon turd floats to the surface, I’ll be able to scoop it out.”
• “Granny dropped her dentures in the pool and they’re hidden under the silt. Once I get those choppers out, we can get back in the pool and Granny can eat solid food again.”
• “I developed some nasty rash from the chemicals I bought off Craig’s List, but if you don’t mind itchy, oozing sores all over your body, jump right on in!”
• “Some biology professor from Texas State is currently using our pool for a study on pond scum.”
• “Our skimmer is clogged with an adult diaper. If you can pull that sucker out, then maybe I can get the filter to work.”
• “The government is still trying to determine what killed all them birds in our back yard.”
• “Have you got any idea how to get an angry snappin’ turtle out of a swimming pool?”
• “Some British dude spilled a whole bottle of Coppertone in my pool. Once we clean up the oil slick, then we can open the pool for swimming.”
• “I’d like to go swimmin’, but my goofy nephew put his pet piranha in my pool back in March and I haven’t caught the bugger yet.”
• “There seems to be a short in our underwater light, but doesn’t Maw look good with an Afro?”
I hope you can use one of these excuses to keep neighborhood kids from thinking your backyard is the YMCA. If you need more explanations why Bubba and his old lady shouldn’t swim in your cement pond, just holler. I just bought a new Speedo and a case of Lone Star, and I plan to break both out this weekend. I reckon I can develop another disgusting excuse or two while floating alongside of drowned squirrels and bobbing raccoon turds if you need more advice. If none of these excuses work, then I suggest stringing barb wire around your property ‘cause you’ve got some real freaks living next door.
Clint Younts was photographed in his speedo, but his wife decided publication of said photo would break the presses. When Younts isn’t cleaning his pool, he works at a veterinary clinic.
