Are inflatable pools miserable or a balm for Tampa Bay’s heat wave?

The aquatic aisle at Target is a hall of absurdities, a gallery of blissful summer fantasies that shall never come to pass. Or shall they?

Consider the photos on inflatable swimming pool boxes. The children politely pass each other a ball. The parents are coiffed, calm and void of August pit sweat. The grass is plastic turf, and as such, absent of fire ants forming an apocalyptic army near a jagged tree root. Everyone is having a blast in a vinyl tub the size of two crisscrossed NBA players.

Inflatable pools! The! Answer! To! All! Problems!

We in Florida are slogging through a dreadful heat wave, the terrifying existential threats of which we have discussed. But being knowledgeable in the face of disaster does not make one any less m*ist. We also need to talk about keeping cool.

Do you remember the inflatable pool craze of 2020? During high pandemic times, tiny backyard pools soared to a premium. Folks, desperate to feel something besides the anxiety of quarantine, were establishing socially distanced pool pods. They even turned galvanized water tanks meant for farm animals into makeshift lagoons. I never got a pool, though. I opted to walk around the streets and cry.

If you ever find yourself in one of those swirly moods where it feels like (insert unpleasantness) will never change, maybe there’s truth to that. COVID-19 cases are, indeed, back on the rise. On the other hand, stores are practically giving away pools now.

In St. Petersburg’s Gateway Target, I lingered on the La Vaca Minnidip, a 5.5-foot classy affair in the tufted girlboss style “blushing palms,” down from $53 to $16. Ultimately, I chose the less sexy Sun Squad “family pool with bench” because it was 7 feet and had, crucially, cup holders. It cost $13.50.

The family seemed excited on the text thread, thrilled even, because everything is more fun at the concept level. Then I brought the box home.

“Oh, this is going to be miserable,” my husband said, laying a positive groundwork for success. “This is going to be so miserable.”

He meant blowing it up. But I must admit, part of me hypothesized the whole experience would be miserable. Had adults been sold another nostalgic lie that simply looks cute on Instagram? Had I purchased one more pointless plastic product to rot on the patio? Would we find respite in a punishing climate where sweat will not evaporate off the skin, or would we hasten the onset of malaria?

We are a tools family. We even have an air compressor, an ideal item for inflating, say, a pool. Unfortunately, I loaned that item to a co-worker days before I acquired a pool. This led us to the next 90 minutes of inflating the pool with a bicycle pump and our own lungs. Incidentally, a spouse has not fulfilled marriage vows until said spouse is sprawled in an empty kiddie pool like a dying starfish on a Sunday afternoon, puffing into a tiny hole in a quest for relaxation.

“This is the second-stupidest thing I’ve ever gotten us into!” I yelled, drenched with sweat between aggressive bike pumps. The first was goat yoga, but that’s another story.

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My husband, stepdaughter and I took turns pumping air until the pool reached her glorious potential. She emerged bubbly, firm and ready to execute her watery duties at the exact moment thunder started rumbling.

An hour later, we got in the *&^%$#% pool. Ironically, the rain really cooled things off and the sun went behind the clouds. Here we were running from heat, and the heat ran from us.

I regret to inform you, this made things kind of lovely. We were able to sort ourselves in a Tetris shape and unwind as the neighbors walked past laughing. We forced our Pomeranian to swim, and he has not forgiven us. My husband, who nearly passed away during inflation like Darth Vader, really seemed to take to it. This might have had something to do with the cup holders.

Guys, it’s not that deep (see what I did there?) There’s only so much you can do in 2 feet of water. You certainly can’t, you know, swim. So we laughed and chatted and marinated like meat, and although this diversion was small, it felt different from the daily drudge of hiding from the heat wave inside and watching one more repeat of “The Office.” I asked the junior member of our Tetris pod for her review of the $13.50 experience: “Worth it.”

So, there you have it, hotties. Pool = a sliver of silliness in a saggy summer. We emptied the water into the overgrown yard, further eroding our home’s crumbling foundation, and rolled the pool back onto the patio, where it once sprang to wild and precious life. It’s still there, staring, waiting. We can’t ever deflate it. We’ve come too far.

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