We've all seen pictures of animal rescue workers called in to remove wild animals - crocs, bears, snakes - from pools. Saturday, it a cow that wandered into a backyard pool in Pittsfield, Mass. [ click here to watch YouTube video ]
You might want to ask: "What was the cow doing in the pool?"
My question is: "What was the pool doing in the backyard?"
Pools can be breathtakingly beautiful, like this one. It was a stock photo intended for one of my B2B websites, but it was so pretty I decided to use it for my desktop wallpaper. It helps to look at something like this throughout your workday, especially when you know who some of my friends are. More on this later
If I had something like this in my backyard, I would become a Bakossi Buddhist and meditate nightly in the blue mist with a glass of Coppola Merlot, served chilled.
Back in 1993, my ex-roommate and had an apartment situated two floors overlooking a gorgeous swimming pool. At night, it was a sight to behold, especially if no one ventured out to disturb the mysterious calmness of the blue water.
That's when the thought first occurred to me that backyard pools may be very much like paintings; they're best left alone. We dig a hole in the ground, make it all fancy-schmancy and fill it up with water to make it look impeccable. We throw in chemicals to keep it clean, probably because we know what we do while in the water.
My worst pool experience occurred one fateful Wednesday evening at an apartment pool in San Antonio, Texas in 1999. The pool had been treated that day, and someone must've removed the "No Swimming" sign, because an unsuspecting bush Bakossi man showed up for a swim that evening. It was like diving into water spiced with freshly crushed habanero pepper.
That must be the day I decided that swimming best be left to mostly to amphibians, which doesn't apply to cows. The Pittsfield, Mass. cow seemed a tad bewildered and annoyed, seemingly asking itself: "Na which kind badluck this?," and probably taking a dump in the pool to register its displeasure.
Swimming pools have become an increasingly popular backyard fixture in American homes. Like some of my friends, pools are high-maintenance luxury items. Jokes aside, pools are deadly.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, an estimated 350 children under five years of age drown each year in swimming pools, many in residential pools. The Commission estimates that another 2,600 children under age five are treated in hospital emergency rooms each year following submersion incidents. Some of these submersions result in permanent brain damage. Nationally, drowning is a leading cause of death to children under five.
Pool drownings are not limited to infants. In 1996, Tom Mees, the noted ESPN hockey broadcaster, drowned while attempting to save his four-year-old daughter, Gabrielle, who had fallen into a swimming pool. Mees, 46, could not swim. Most recently, two Cameroonian teens drowned in a family friend's pool in Newscastle, Del. This one hit a little closer; one of the teens was the son of a high school classmate of mine. The key to preventing these tragedies is to have layers of protection. This includes placing barriers around your pool to prevent access, using pool alarms, closely supervising your child and being prepared in case of an emergency.
In other words, you spend a small fortune to beautify your home, in the process greatly increasing the chances that someone might drown on your property. To minimize the risk, you need to spend another boatload of money to reduce the beauty of your pool in the name of safety, then increase your blood pressure every time you play host to a pool party.
Still, you walk out to the backyard one evening and find a cow in your pool.
Well, that's a lot better than diving into chemical habanero
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