I’ve been feeling a bit like Gladys Kravitz as of late. It’s not that I suspect anyone in my neighborhood of being a witch. Unlike some, I don’t believe we’re in the 1600s. Instead, what’s happening is that my neighbor is building a pool on the side of their house which faces my sunroom. So, every morning, afternoon, and some evenings, it’s very easy to watch and snoop and check out the progress.
It all starts innocently enough. The neighbors told me that they were going to have a pool installed so I would know what was going on if I heard the noise of workers and equipment early in the morning. I appreciated the heads up as I live in constant fear of bulldozers plowing down my home for a new freeway. True to their words, a day or two later I woke to the sounds of workers and equipment.
I immediately went out to the sunroom to get a look at what was going on. There was a backhoe working on excavating where the pool would go. It took a few days to finish this as there was rain moving in. Being a homeowner who is slowly turning into his father I began to fear that a mudslide would send a huge mound of dirt down towards my home. It didn’t. About a week after the space was fully excavated came the biggest part of the show.
A huge flatbed showed up with the pool insert. I went to my sunroom and watched it all, trying my best to not be noticed. I don’t think my neighbors would mind my curiosity, but I also had a fear they would think I’m being nosy by just watching things like a hawk. It was another moment when I began to think that I am becoming my elder. My grandmother was a watchdog. She could sit with a cup of coffee and one eye on “The Bold and The Beautiful” with another eye on what was going on out the window.
Grandma knew the name of every dog on the street and would always perk up if she didn’t see one for a few days that usually was out, or if a strange vehicle stopped at a house for what she deemed was “a little too long.” I knew I wasn’t going to get that bad. I wasn’t going to be in my kitchen cooking watching old episodes of “Match Game” and worrying about the number of times the UPS truck stopped across the street.
I figured once the big show of getting the pool placed would be the end of my snoop party. Reader, it wasn’t. This became my own, personal, “The Bold and The Beautiful.” It went beyond just keeping an eye out through the windows of my sunroom. It moved into peaking out the blinds of the bedroom “Hmm. What’s that they’re dropping off?” I’d say to myself as a truck would leave something in a box or wrapped up in plastic on a pallet.
I didn’t need whatever the newest, buzziest, binge TV craze is. I had pool construction to watch and wonder over. Now, at any point, I could have just asked what was what. But where was the fun in that? I needed to snoop. I needed to imagine. I was becoming Jimmy Stewart in “Rear Window.” (Please read the following in a Jimmy Stewart voice, thank you) “Yeah, yeah. Those look like tiles there. Big pallets of tiles. I wonder who’ll install them?”
I hope when the pool is finished it will end my snooping ways. Am I doomed to become my grandmother? Will I soon know about everything going on all around my home? Will I be able to set my clocks by the schedules of the UPS and FedEx trucks? Who can say? All I know is I never thought I’d become a snoop over a pool, yet here we are.
I hope they’ll invite me over to see the pool when it’s finished then I can act like a big shot who knows things. “Oh, yeah. Limestone, huh? I heard that’s really good to use around the pool. I see you’ve got the Poolflow 9000 pump system? That’s a fine system. Real good for filtration.” That won’t seem creepy. Will it? See you next week.