Memories of our own muttered expletives
My husband and I live in a modest house on a small lot. When I first moved into our house, there was a pool that took up the entire backyard. When I mean “entire,” I mean after opening the back door and taking five steps, you would fall into the pool. It was a constant worry for me when small children came to visit. My husband inherited this house and the pool, and he had fond memories of swimming for hours with his friends. He loved the pool. I did not.
If you have ever owned a pool, you know it’s like owning a boat: maintenance, repairs, time, money and the constant guilt of not using it. It is said that the two best days of boat ownership are the day it was bought and the day it was sold.
My husband doesn’t like to spend money, so he cleaned and maintained the pool himself. Still, I estimated that it cost us close to $200 a month, between electricity, pool chemicals and repairs. Oh, and there were repairs! At least once a month, my husband would wrestle with the pool filter, mutter, rant and spew expletives from around the corner where the pool filter existed. I knew not to check on him when this occurred. My presence did not make it better.
What in the world does this have to do with a holiday movie? Well, it doesn’t really, except that every time I think about my husband and his ongoing struggle with the pool filter, I can’t help but think about the movie, “A Christmas Story.” And then I laugh. In “A Christmas Story,” the dad constantly battles his furnace in the basement where he wrestles, rants and spews obscenities — “that are still hanging in space somewhere over Lake Michigan.” It is a darling movie that touches on many funny family dynamics during the holidays in the 1940s. From a scary visit to Santa, a boy’s dream for a Red Ryder BB gun, an unwanted bunny suit from Auntie, the disastrous turkey scene, and of course, the “Major Award,” an obnoxious fishnet stocking lamp leg that dad wins. The movie is as funny as it is endearing. It is our family’s all-time favorite movie to watch during the holiday season.
So what about the pool? Well, the day came, after a particularly bad round with the filter, when my husband walked in the house and said, “I’m done!” The pool was taken out, and it was the happiest day of my life. Now I can look out onto our small backyard and enjoy the garden, bird feeders and fountain that have replaced the pool. And it makes me smile every time I think about the pool that was once there and my husband’s expletives, floating somewhere out in space. Thank you, “A Christmas Story.”
Vicki Hoffman, Rolando