Anatomy of a backyard swimming pool: 2001: A family with four young children receives word that a neighbor wants to give away his aboveground pool and all the accessories that go with it. The mother loves the idea; the father hates it. The mother says that although this will create some work and be costly, in the long run, the benefits will outweigh the drawbacks. Despite the fact that this argument sounds suspiciously like the one she used to convince him that having children would be a good idea, he relents.

2002: As he attempts to remove the winter cover and open the pool for the first time, the father decides that placing the pool directly beneath a tree was not a great idea. Roughly 600 pounds of wet, decaying leaves sit on top of the cover, and by the end of his effort, all of them are on—and in a couple of cases, in— him. The children love the pool, but they and their mother wish there was a deck to go with it. The father believes he is too young to be experiencing frequent chest pains.

2003: One of the oddest trios ever formed comes together to build a deck: the father joined by his father and stepfather. Luckily, the stepfather knows what he’s doing. The other two spend most of the weekend holding up shiny, pointy things and asking: “Is this a nail or a screw?” The deck goes up. It is a thing of beauty.

2004-05: Everyone except the father forgets how to work the skimmer, the vacuum and the brush. The father fights a losing effort to get the pool water closer to a shade of blue, spending huge sums of money on chlorine and shock. One of the children has a friend over who looks at the water when it is a kind of lime-ish color, says, “Ewww,” and departs, never to return to go swimming again.

2006: During the annual Wearin’ o’ the Leaves, the father notices that the filter has a broken part. He begins calling pool stores to see if they have it. He learns that his particular filter was apparently last manufactured during Prohibition. After tracking down a store in Hamburg that still carries his brand, he asks a clerk where he can find the part. Store employees come from every direction to catch a glimpse of the father and chuckle.

2007: The mother, whom the father vividly recalls being the pool’s loudest cheerleader, now says maybe it’s time for it to go. The children don’t use it that much, and it seems to be more work than it’s worth. The father no longer cares that much about the pool, but he has grown to love his deck and can’t bear the thought of life without it.

2008: Now almost completely out of his mind and convinced that the filter is out to get him, the father begins yelling at his children to use the pool like other parents might yell about doing chores. “If the four of you don’t go in that pool today, you will all be punished. Now get out there and frolic!” His hair begins falling out in clumps.

2009: Between mid-June and mid- July, the pool water looks and feels like Lake Erie. The father now uses the pool vacuum more than every other household appliance combined. The children view the pool as more curiosity than recreation and greet overtures from their father to have friends come over to use it the same way they greet overtures from their father to rake leaves. The son announces often that he is going next door to go swimming in the neighbor’s new aboveground pool, where the water is always a sparkling blue. The father wonders if he might be able to interest his neighbor in a slightly used deck.