Thursday Throwback: The Spillcock One

Today’s post was written about three years ago, when I was terribly pregnant and terribly hot.  Thanks to Jen from Conversion Diary for asking for a rerun!  It brings a tear to my eye to know that my poor scribblings are remembered, even if it’s only because I used the word “spillcock.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There Are Worse Things than Being Hot

When we were house hunting, we promised the kids that the one we bought would have a hose spigot. Or, as I learned today, a spill cock. It’s called a spill cock.

I will now go back to calling it a hose spigot.

So, big liars that we are, we got a house without a hose spigot.

The kids have gone about five years without a hose, which means no fun ever, no how. But a promise is a promise, so finally (after calling a plumber for an estimate to do it the right way) (eleventy million dollars) I figured out that you can use gravity and pressure and what not to siphon water out of the bathtub, through a hose, down the back stairs, and into a pool.

This ungratifying system even works, in a feeble way, with a water slide (and the poor kids don’t even realize the water is supposed to be gushing out in a fabulous, fun-tastic wave of SplashAction! What it does is limply burble a little, and they pretend to be puppy dogs, and line up to take turns licking it. I know, I know. This is why I don’t put my last name).

Anyway, the catch is that, in order to get the water flowing down hill through the hose, you have to get all the air out of it.

Yep, pregnant lady stands in the back yard, in full view of the constant line of bored truckers who barrel past our house . . . suckin’ on a hose.

I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I almost drowned only twice, when the water came through unexpectedly just when I was breathing in. (The kids thought it was hilarious, especially the retching part.) And I don’t believe in bacteria (oh, it’s this terribly dangerous stuff that’s absolutely everywhere, but it’s invisible, huh? Riiight), so that’s not a problem.

So today it’s 93 degrees out, and since I was up all night dreaming about bears (I love the third trimester) and I’m stupid-sleepy, we’re not driving anywhere, even to feel some air conditioning.

Why aren’t we in the pool?

Because I left the hose right where Mama Snake hatched forty million babies a few weeks ago.

Think about that, and then you start sucking on a hose.