IMG 2880 e1528747053477 1

The Future Is Coming to Our Neighborhood Pool (Maybe)!

Jim and I are super lucky: not only do we have access to a pool in our fairly tiny (only 40-ish homes) neighborhood, but we also have it to ourselves quite often (I do especially, during the workweek).

IMG 2880 e1528747053477 1

One of the additional perks that comes with this solitary pool time is the ability to bring my Wonderboom speaker and play the music of my choice at a nice outdoorsy volume.

Of course, when other people get to the pool and find that they have it to themselves, they do the same thing…or so I found out yesterday when Jim and I gleefully put on our swimsuits and headed over there. One of our neighbors was enjoying some time on a foam float, country music blasting.

BLECH.

I happen to enjoy a couple of country songs here and there but mostly I can’t stand it.

Anyway, our neighbor was there first. I should call him our very NICE neighbor in fact, because, first of all, I don’t know his name. Secondly, when we entered the pool area and greeted him with a happy “hello!” he said, “Hi! Let me get out real quick and turn my music off.”

I replied, “No, no, it’s totally okay!”

And it was. He had dibs. Also, I much prefer a musical pool to a silent one, even if it means I have to listen to country.

Jim and I got into the pool (it’s hot here, y’all!) and hung out by the side together, chatting. I was complaining about nearly all of the songs that were playing (our very nice neighbor couldn’t hear me, don’t worry, and it wasn’t personal anyway!) and suddenly I had an EXCELLENT idea, which I spewed to Jim as he stood there shaking his head with wide eyes and sometimes an open mouth.

“You know what would be GREAT?? One of those electronic jukeboxes, you know like the one we used when we went out with Momo and Andy that time, at that restaurant in Columbus with the famous burgers. The HOA could install one of those on the brick wall over there by the clubhouse so it wouldn’t get wet in a rainstorm, and let’s see. Here’s how it would work: Nobody would need to bring their own speaker anymore AND when there are several of us here it would be okay because everyone would get to play some of the music they enjoy. The HOA would make the money off the music, see? So let’s say I get here first. I would just put in a couple dollars’ worth of music and it would play…WAIT. No need to bring money because there could be a way to sign up for an account and it would store your payment information so all you would need is your account number, which could be your address, and a password. So anyway, the HOA would make all this money because obviously everyone wants to hear their own music. We could have the volume set at one level: pool-wide. And there could also be a seniority system! For example, since we’ve only been here a little more than a year we’d unfortunately be sort of low on the list but the original owners in the neighborhood could come to the pool and their songs could get bumped to the top so they’d get played immediately. Or wait, maybe just one or two of their songs would get bumped up because we don’t want everyone to be mad…nobody likes to be mad at the pool, right? So this seniority system would be great for the most part and OH! WAIT! We could also have a video screen installed and it could play MUSIC VIDEOS sometimes, probably at an extra charge, I don’t know, and ALSO we could have neighborhood karaoke parties, even though karaoke isn’t MY thing I think lots of people enjoy it and I do enjoy WATCHING people do karaoke, so we could do that and it would be so much fun. And, OH! WAIT! For every 100 songs you buy, you get a credit for 10 free ones. Or something like that! And maybe like, brand new residents in the neighborhood could get a song credit in their welcome packet: how great would that be?! OOH! UNDERWATER SPEAKERS!”

Jim raised his eyebrows, smiled, and said, “THAT IS BRILLIANT. I LOVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM.”

Kidding. He laughed and said something like, “I’m thinking it won’t work. You’re still cute, though.”

I don’t know. The idea has a few kinks but I think it may be in our neighborhood’s future. I’ll keep you posted.

4 Comments