Don't Pee In the Pool

    The Big Red Lie

Growing up, I lived, what felt like, an idyllic life.
A big, beautiful home, two loving, and very fun parents, two (overly) protective big brothers, a cute little black puppy dog, a goldfish, and a bird. Directly behind our house was a neighbor's ranch. My bedroom was upstairs so I could sit and watch the horses run around all day from my bedroom window. I could also look directly down at our gorgeous swimming pool in the backyard. I loved my childhood.

Me and my Daddy 1976 

    We lived in a cul-de-sac so all of us neighborhood kids ran together in a pack until our mothers would yell out of the front doors to call us home for dinner, or because it was getting dark. Back in those days, they used their voices to call us, and not texts. It seemed to be a more simple world back then. Because as kids we were more likely to be found outside digging in the dirt, playing football, hoola-hoop, or playing some pretend game with our friends on their lawns. We could actually leave without carrying our cell tracking devices attached to us. But I digress.
 
I am assuming my parents had a wonderfully fiendish master plan when they decided to build the swimming pool in our yard. Not only would it be fun for our family, but they knew that their children would never want to be anywhere else, so they wouldn't have to worry.
             And for the most part, they were right.

 Our swimming pool was always the center of my childhood and there was a constant stream of pool parties at our house. We had an antique jukebox that we refurbished, and were always adding new records to it from a little record store in San Jose, back when they actually had record stores. They had the 45 rpm records and we would search, for what seemed like hours, for the perfect records for our impossibly loud poolside music. God, the neighbors behind us must have hated us. I know the neighbors the sides didn't because they were always at our house.
 

But of course, no life is idyllic. There are always imperfections, little skeletons in the closet.  I've got TONS of them! Lots of great things to Blog about! But having skeletons doesn't mean you have a lot to bitch or complain about.  I don't have too much to complain about, really.
 Except my brothers' and their Dirty Little Lies...
    They lied to me about the red pee.
___________________________

    I was 4 years old when we moved into our new home, and about 6 when the pool was put in. So naturally, my big brothers were probably worried that their little sister, and the two neighbor boys, Michael and Jimmy, who were always swimming in the pool too, would pee in the pool. I had only a few of years potty training under my belt (quite literally) after all....
  

Me, Papa Lansing, and neighbor boys

So the Big Red Lie started when they told me that if I, or anyone else, peed in the pool that it would turn into a huge, bright cloud of red pee that would billow out, and shine bright like Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer's Nose.

Then everyone would know that I peed in the water.

I was both horrified, and yet empowered at the same time.
Allow me to explain....
As a child, you are in the pool, having so much fun with your friends, and then it hits you... you have to pee... You try and hold it as long as you can, doing everything possible (twisting your legs together tightly, sitting on the swimming pool steps, or, staying in the shallow end so you don't have to kick as much) because you are having so much fun and you know that if you get out of the pool, you have to follow Mom's rules about going in the house after you've been in the pool.
#1 Dry off completely.
#2 No wet towels in the house.
     DRY OFF COMPLETELY!?! THAT TAKES FOREVER!!!!
So I would squeeze it in a little harder, trying not to let any of it seep out for fear that a BIG RED CLOUD would form around me and I would forever carry a shadow of humiliation (as if my brothers didn't tease me enough).

Yet I would persevere. I would somehow ignore the pangs and the cries of my bladder as I would throw the beach ball, jump on the raft, or jump off the side of the pool.  Each time I would anxiously look down to see if anything had (without my knowing) slipped out, and I was, from the day forward, going to have "Red Cloud" as my new nickname. But getting out of the pool was just too much trouble when you're 7 years old.   
   So I spent many swim days having fun with my friends, but there were certain ones I kept my eyes on more closely. Ones I didn't trust to get out of the pool if they had to go to the bathroom. So I watched diligently, and anxiously. And then, it happened...
   I turned the tables and became the cruel one. I was the one doing the lying. Telling the Dirty Red Lie that I wasn't even entirely sure was true. I told so many of my young swim friends that if they peed in the pool that a their pee would turn into a GIANT RED CLOUD.  Mostly because I sometimes would get pool water in my mouth, and didn't want to drink my friend's pee.

   I had to be sure. Because I was pretty darn sure that I wasn't going to like the taste of pee. So I told them the same lie my brothers told me.
The thing is my brother's didn't have to lie to ME. All they had to do was say, "Shelly, Don't pee in the pool. It's gross. No one wants to drink pee." And I would have been so disgusted by that I would have never even entertained the idea. But instead I had to endure many summers of anxiety because I didn't want my pee to slip out during a swim game, or because I thought I spotted a red cloud around a swim friend.
    But then, I learned the truth from an angel.
 

Shelly, Mama, and Joyce

My Mama told me that, in fact, the water wouldn't turn red if you peed in it. She said, "You shouldn't pee in the water Shelly" (Duh, I knew that...), "But if someone did, we would never have known it. No, we never have put the chemicals in the pool that would turn your pee red".
   My brother's Dirty Red Lie had been revealed.
       So I waited.
After Football practice one day both of them went into the pool to cool off. I got in too.
And before I got out I let out a little bit of pee.
  So there...
Vengeance is sometimes quite sweet.

Moral to the story is:
   ~Don't pee in the pool.
   ~Some pools do have chemicals that turn your pee red (pee-er beware).
   ~Do not drink pool water.
   ~Sometimes people lie.
   ~Sometimes people tell the truth too.
   ~Big brothers should beware of vengeful baby sisters.
      And this is the BIG one...
         ~The things you do, and the things you say can greatly affect those around you. Telling Big Red Lies, or peeing in the pool. Be careful, sensitive, loving and cautious about what you do and say to others. Be kind, be loving, be truthful. 

    
And Fill your life with lots of friends and family.
  With or without a pool. 

Locastro, Lansing and Hewitt Cousins 

Shelly Livingston
Wife, Mama, Nana, Artist, Minister, YouTuber, Blogger, Woman Who DOESN'T Pee in Pools
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