May 25, 2010

MacGyver Mom

I was like MacGyver over the weekend.

It was hot, hot, hot and the kids wanted to swim. I dimly remembered an inflatable swimming pool in the bowels of the garage and after some looking found it under a pile of cobwebs and various gardening tools.

I tried blowing it up with a bike tire pump but it didn’t fit. Then I remembered we have an electric pump to pump up our air mattress and searched the house for it – even in Ralf’s lair, where he keeps his tools – and finally unearthed it in the guest room under a pile of clothes.

I triumphantly marched into the garden brandishing it and yelling, Who’s number 1?

Then I noticed it was an American plug. Bloody heck. So I went up to our bedroom and unplugged the heavy converter we use for our US-bought TV and lugged it downstairs.

Whereupon after hooking everything up I realized the pump didn’t have the right size adapter to blow up the swimming pool. There may have been some ladylike swearing at this point, you know, shucks, darn, that sort of thing. Then I got some duct tape and spliced it.

Perhaps you’ve seen Apollo 13? It was like that.

Ralf, who lives with me, at first didn't believe I spliced anything. And once he believed he laughed heartily about how annoyed it must have made me.

To finish my story, after about an hour the pool was finally blown up and filled with water. ‘It’s too cold!’ my dear ones complained, refusing to go in.

Envisioning all my hard work going to waste I found myself lugging buckets of warm water from the kitchen like Laura Ingalls.

That's kind of the end of the pool story.

Anyway, I thought you’d like to know.

14 comments:

  1. You're a good mom. That is a lot of work to blow up/warm up an inflatable pool for the kiddies, but I bet they had a ball.

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  2. Where would we all be without duct tape? You Rock HPH!!

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  3. You rock! Not only in a "I just made something really cool with duct tape way" but also in that you were willing to haul the water to the pool. I think I'll have to make a trip to Germany to visit

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  4. You really are McGuyver! I am impressed!

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  5. Look out! It's Supermom!

    What's that smell?

    No, it was the cat. Really.

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  6. Well, you know *I* approve of the duct tape engineering. Your perseverance in getting that dang pool inflated is inspiring. Not sure I would've got past the first episode of cussing.

    That poot phrase could come in handy with all the kielbasa I ate yesterday.... That's just terrible to say, isn't it ;) ?

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  7. I like this. I shared the German phrase with the whole family!!

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  8. Duct tape fixes everything! And yes, I guess it is catchier in German...

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  9. Holy cow! You spliced an adaptor? I'm not sure I know what that means, but I'm impressed. I bow to your industriousness.

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  10. You really worked hard for that pool experience. I might have made them go in even if it was too cold.

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  11. Hey that was really commendable on your part.Hope my mom was like you too..Great reading the details.I am sure the kids enjoyed the pool.Let me know what happened.Take care.

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  12. I too would have done the hot water after persevering the 2 middle fingered-adaptor obstacles.

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  13. I'm going to test my husband's German skills and quiz him on that phrase.

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