Exploding Waterworks Batman!

Fact: I sometimes act impulsively without the thoroughness that would result in a task completed in a quality, thorough, and safe fashion.

Fact: I am not particularly intuitive when it comes to household tasks.

Fact: In a completely unrelated tangent, a beautiful orange bird is flitting around my bougainvillea right now, but it is very amazing and distracting. OHHH...another orange bird is in the palm tree.

Fact: If you google "Florida Orange Bird", you get thousands of images just like this one:



Do not be concerned for my mental health. This is NOT the bird I "see" in my tree.

Back to the story:

Working outside. LOVELY days this weekend...Igor sucked the humidity out of Florida (technical meteorological terms) and it was high 80's and pleasant. Sunday, I am cleaning the pool while Barry is chopping down the weeds that are attacking the previously mentioned Bougainvillea. It's rainy season, so we have to lower the pool water every few days. If the water is too high, the ickies on the top don't skim off through the pump mechanism do-hickey (more technical jargon...try to keep up!).

In order to lower the water, I attach this blue, flat, heavy plastic tubing to a pipe with a valve on the pump. I have a circle clamp that goes on first, then I wiggle the blue tubing around the pipe and under the clamp. I tighten the clamp, unroll the tubing (so the water drains toward the road), then open the valve and VOILA!

Voila or BOOM!, depending on a small detail....

I unrolled the hose, but didn't straighten it. It was flipped over several times especially near the far end away from the pump. I THOUGHT the force of the water would fill it and it would just unroll. This DID not happen. The water built up at the flips, sort of like a twist in a balloon. I ran down (accompanied by my happy dog, who thought I might want to play) and tried to UNTWIST the hose, but of course each untwist motion put an EXTRA twist in the areas further down that had semi-filled with water. I start to try to flip faster and faster and BOOM the hose EXPLODES in a SHREDDED MASS OF PLASTIC showering the dog and I.

Barry walked by, hauling weeds. He looked at me, the dripping dog, the gushing water, and the shredded hose and shakes his head. In a resigned voice, he comments, "I guess we now have two hoses, a short one and a long one."

THAT'S my guy!