Deathtrap #1

When I was a kid our grandparents had this tiny pool in their backyard. Their backyard was also home to a bunch of roofing equipment for their construction business. It featured a giant dumpster, pallets of shingles, stacks of 50 gallon drums full of tar, and to top it off; 2 warehouses stuffed with booby traps that kids should defiantly not go into. All of this surrounded a beautiful in ground pool. It wasn’t as magical as I made it look here, but it sure felt like this to me growing up. And on a hot summer day, with 100% east coast humidity. It didn’t matter what surrounded the pool as long as the water was cold.

My family is small and very Polish. We’re pretty inventive and work hard for everything. But one thing my family loves more than Kielbasa and pierogis… is a good deal. I’m sure my grandfather put in the pool because he scored a good deal on it.

One afternoon my uncle scored this screaming deal on an old slide from an elementary school. So naturally he brought it back to their house and stuck it next to the pool. He also had this genius idea to hook up a hose to the top and let the water run down so it you wouldn’t burn your ass on the hot metal when you slid down. It was like our own private water park. Over the years they would drag it out every season, and by the time I got to the age where I wanted to try it out, the slide had started to rust on the edges. Now I was a fat kid. Waayyyy to many Klondike bars were fed to me, so when I slid down I could feel the rust in my hands and thighs. The slide was so big that an adult could get enough speed to almost hit the other wall when they landed. The thought that you could almost die made this deathtrap so scary yet awesome.
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A few years ago my grandmother passed away. Her nickname was the Queen. The pool wasn’t much but it was something truly special to her. I never saw her get in, but she always took full advantage of the sunshine next to the pool. Now she might not be there anymore but the pool isn’t empty. There’s a new generation of great grandkids taking full advantage of the Klondikes in the freezer and needing a tetanus shot from the slide.