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No foolin' with poolin' in ant-infested yard

By: Doug Speirs

Posted: 07/23/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Despite the scorching heat and unrelenting humidity, I have been walking a little taller and feeling a little cooler the last few weeks.

I think my unfettered joy has been obvious to everyone, especially those sweat-stained wretches trying to beat the heat by taking refuge in the frozen food aisle at our local Safeway.

"Look at him!" I can hear them whispering enviously as they peek out from behind the Popsicles. "That is the confident swagger of a man with a brand new swimming pool."

And they are right, of course. In fact, as I sit at my home computer composing these professionally amusing words, I am simultaneously staring out the back window, delighting in the beauty and majesty of our brand new inflatable swimming pool.

As inflatable pools go, it is a monster. About 15 feet across and three feet deep, it's exactly like a standard inflatable kiddie-style pool, assuming you fed it nothing but steroids for three months.

It takes at least two days to fill it with water, which is an extremely long time to stand still holding a garden hose, which I assume is why God created comfortable lawn chairs and unemployed teenagers.

To get into this refreshing oasis, I am forced to squeeze my 280-pound frame into an XXL bathing suit, which makes me resemble a 1960s-era beanbag chair or a large slug-like alien -- Jabba the Hutt springs to mind -- starring in a Star Wars-themed remake of the summer classic Beach Blanket Bingo.

Suitably attired, I must then abandon the safety of my bedroom, crawl across the back lawn, which, thanks to the blast-furnace temperatures, has been baked into something as hard and lifeless as the Canadian Senate. Finally, I have to navigate up and down a flimsy plastic ladder, at which point I can begin "swimming," defined as crawling around on all fours in three feet of water, much like a baby elephant, only with larger ears and a worse memory.

The main thing I do for fun in this pool is float perched on top of an inflatable beach chair and, every few seconds, shriek like a little girl because I have been bitten in a medically sensitive area by one of the millions of thumb-sized ants that famously colonized my backyard at the beginning of summer and have foiled every effort, including flaming torches and threatening letters from my lawyer, to chase them away.

My predicament is similar to the one endured by the hero of a terrifying short story we all had to read back in high school, in which a determined Brazilian plantation owner builds a series of moats and levees to defend his livelihood from an unstoppable sea of army ants gobbling up everything in its path.

For me, the real scary part was when the voracious jungle ants hit on the ingenious idea of building bridges over the moat using (gasp!) the bodies of fellow ants who bravely sacrificed themselves, which I assume is probably what is happening in my new backyard pool. (First ant: "Tell my kids I loved them! Glub!" Second ant: "And I'll bite the fat guy for you, too!")

But I am not going to let a few waterproof ants get under my charbroiled skin, not when I have plunked down big bucks to soak myself in style in a state-of-the-art inflatable watering hole.

So, no, I don't really mind the hordes of swimming ants, but I'm starting to think the cruel taunts from my wife and kids and the neighbours next door in their fancy in-ground pool might force me and my overburdened bathing suit to find a more private place to cool down.

If I'm really lucky, there'll be room for one more sweaty guy behind the Popsicles.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 23, 2012 A2

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