It was 2:00pm on a Thursday afternoon and Paula was waiting for the new pool man to come. Paula was never keen on having a pool in her backyard because of the time it took to clean. Paula vowed to her husband Phil, at the time when the pool was being dug, that “If you put in a pool, I ain’t cleaning it”. Of course, Phil had wanted it for the kids, but now th...
What a day. Even for the Midwest in the middle of July this is too hot and humid of a day for me. Luckily, my homeowner's association has a pool for our use in the summer and today I plan on being there to cool off. I picked this townhouse community because it's so quiet with mostly older folks and a lot of retired people in it. It's rare to see a kid or a...
This is a slow build. We're all 18+. It's partially true. _________________________ I've always had a terrible sense of FOMO. Snow days used to drive me nuts because I was afraid my friends would be able to hang out without me. Camp was torture because I thought of all the fun everyone was having at home, and when I was at home I was terrified something wo...
It seems as though my marriage has reached a seven-year itch. My name is Victoria and I have been married to my husband John for exactly seven years today. However his job sends him around the world almost every month, leaving me home alone for at least a week. It is even worse that I am a housewife with no children and no job. I live in an extremely large a...
It was a hot summer day in the shining sun. Perfect day for a dip. She was swimming out in our backyard pool, and looked oh so inviting in her bikini, at first taking laps but then settling for just lazily swimming, enjoying the heat-sucking water. I went upstairs and threw on some swimming trunks, ran outside and yelled a warcry as I cannon-balled into the...
A hose dripped into the plastic pool in the backyard. Cigarette butts littered the overgrown lawn. A rocking horse lay sideways nearby, the springs rusted from being in the rain too long. Gnats swarmed around a half-eaten hostess cupcake. The blue sky and hot sun made it all right. Inside, Steffie was watching T.V. with the sound off, while one of her favo...
"Asshole," Jeri said out loud as she drank a tall glass of water near the kitchen sink. Jeri stared lazily at the backyard where the young neighbor was mowing and trimming the backyard. It had been a task he had completed every summer for them for several years. Jeri and her husband had paid him well for his work, which wasn't so good when he first started,...
Kara was bright, single, still in her early thirties and about to become partner in a law firm that handled some of my business. We had dinner together one evening after the closing of a real estate deal. The "dinner" lasted until after midnight. Kara and I became an "item". I was ten years older than Kara, divorced, and living alone. I wasn't Hollywood ha...
Because I had to take a make-up course the summer between my junior and senior years of college, I couldn’t find much in the way of a steady job for those few months. So I blanketed my parents’ neighborhood with flyers offering to do gardening or oddjobs and was pleased I found enough takers to earn a little walking-around money. One of my customers was the...
NOTE: Diane and Peter are back! It's been a while since I've updated this saga, so I hope you're still interested. This one is a little different, at request of an avid reader, who wanted to see something mermaid-related. I hope you enjoy it! As always, please know that comments and feedback are very important in determining what I write next, as you can see...