Country: Death by Solar Cover

The fun thing about summer in the country was the pool. The scary thing about summer in the country was the pool. While Ann and I liked to pretend we were mermaids (neither one of us could name ourselves Ariel because it wasn’t fair to the other. Ariel was the best name. We settled for Aquina and Aquatra. It’s Latin for Holly and Ann, I think), there was a looming fear over all of us: the Solar Cover.
The solar cover was the plastic, bubbly thing that covered the pool while it wasn’t in use (that’s the important part) and warmed the water. Mom had us all convinced that if you swam in the pool with the solar cover partly covering the water, you would die. The solar cover has some sort of weird, magical power of sucking beings underneath it. The problem: as a child, when the solar cover is on the pool, it appears that you could (quite easily) walk across the water like Jesus. Not so. If you were to touch that solar cover with even one little toe, you would die.
Recently, our dog Clemenza decided to jump in the pool while the solar cover was on (apparently she has the same thought process as a child, or a Jesus-complex. Both are equally possible). I screamed in horror, watching her little paws tiptoe across the cover, the solar cover, in all its evil, waiting silently for its prey.
My husband Tristan jumps into the pool to save the dog, and in my mind, I’m thinking they are both dead. Tristan, calmly as ever (I’m screaming and crying), swoops Clemenza up to safety (with wet paws, nothing else) and then casually pulls himself out of the pool. Apparently the solar cover can choose its victims. And Clemenza proved to herself that walking on water was a breeze.