{"id":172229,"date":"2025-11-24T10:00:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T15:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=172229"},"modified":"2025-11-25T12:00:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T17:00:55","slug":"my-illegal-revenge-pool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/24\/my-illegal-revenge-pool\/","title":{"rendered":"My Illegal Revenge Pool"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Photographs courtesy of the author.<\/p><\/div>\n

I was married to a moody millionaire Parisian and I was trying to stay with him\u2014I still loved certain things about him, and I loved everything about my stepchildren and the French way of life. But it was hard. My husband wanted to be who he was, and<\/i> he wanted a happy wife. Not easy to have both at once! I did all these things\u2014got on Zoloft, got a dog, went to spas and Belize and the opera\u2014to make me so-o-o happy it would last through his tirades. He knew he was a monster\u2014he was an honest man\u2014so he did things to help too. He built a cabin outside our home in France for me to go be alone in to recover, and he gave me money to put down on a dilapidated hundred-and-twenty-five-year-old house in Pittsburgh for me to go be alone in and recover even farther away from him.<\/p>\n

When all those fixes didn\u2019t fix it, I came up with the ultimate salve. \u201cI know what we need,\u201d I announced. \u201cA pool. Never in my life have I managed to be unhappy when there was a pool around. I\u2019m a Scorpio, a water sign. It\u2019s a miracle I\u2019ve ever been happy on dry land at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

We had one of the few homes in Paris with a large enough yard\u2014a whole acre!\u2014to fit a pool. And so we went to go buy one. We have very different shopping styles. My husband is a connoisseur, while I\u2019d be fine licking my morning coffee out of a puddle at a truck stop. I pick the first thing I see and pay for it and that\u2019s the end of it. Cars, clothes, even houses. (Even husbands, ha ha.) I don\u2019t ask questions. I figure we have time and brain space for a certain number of answers, and I don\u2019t want to waste mine on dimensions and things of that nature. If it\u2019s wet, that\u2019s all I need to know about a pool.<\/p>\n

My husband likes to gather all the answers, then ask someone else and compare conclusions, sleep on it, and finally go to a caf\u00e9 and tell his plan to an old man he just met and argue for three hours about what\u2019s best.<\/p>\n

Ultimately he decided on this special pool that mimics the ocean, meaning you have to swim against the \u201ctide.\u201d But a really weird tide that blasts you with hot water from six directions. And it has a light show. It cost \u20ac60,000. He called all around France to find somewhere that had one we could try out. Three hours away there lived a man as maniacal about details as my husband. He owned not only one of these six-directional pools but also a manmade hot spring and a manmade ice bath. It would cost \u20ac500 to go swim and then sleep there.<\/p>\n

Upon arrival, we changed into our bathing suits and got into the weird ocean pool in the middle of a cold rain. Despite this pool being my husband\u2019s ideal (how most <\/i>can man interfere with nature) and the opposite of my barbarian aesthetic, upon hitting the water I felt immediately romantic. I tried to catch my husband\u2019s eye or touch his forearm, but I couldn\u2019t compete with another man willing to debate the correct way to turn knobs to organize spray arc and force. They then moved on to adding up all the wars of 1200 to 1500 C.E.<\/small>, proving that England is actually just a part of France.<\/p>\n

Normally after a while of listening to French I get a headache, as I understand maybe 60 percent and my brain can\u2019t stop straining to fill in the other 40 percent, but this time I didn\u2019t care. I was an otter. Otters aren\u2019t bothered by remote controls and war winners. This otter swam against the currents and did somersaults and said \u201cLook at me!\u201d and was happy.<\/p>\n

Even after our trial, my husband wanted to shop around some more. I protested that summer would be over by the time he made up his mind. He told me that if that was my attitude, then never mind, he\u2019d tell me what he\u2019d told his daughter: \u201cIf you don\u2019t take my advice, you don\u2019t take my money either.\u201d Anyway, he said, he\u2019d realized I didn\u2019t deserve a pool, as I\u2019d never mowed the lawn. I said that was because I don\u2019t believe in lawns, they\u2019re unnatural. Me and Edward Gorey\u2014he never mowed a lawn either. And then I told my husband I was leaving him and getting my own pool. He said I\u2019d never get my own pool, for I am irresponsible, impulsive, have an unhealthy relationship with money, and am given to flights of fancy. He said if I wanted a pool, I\u2019d have to take him back or find a new husband. I said, \u201cWatch me.\u201d<\/p>\n

I had $20,000 from selling my car when I\u2019d moved to France four years earlier. I decided to spend half of it on a one-way flight on Bark Air, a private jet service, which was the only way to get my dog to the United States without putting him in the hold, where I felt sure he\u2019d have a heart attack. With the second $10,000, I\u2019d get my pool. I am<\/i> irresponsible, impulsive, and all that other stuff. And glad of it!<\/p>\n

I threw some things in a gym bag, kissed the children goodbye (crying till I turned purple), shook my husband\u2019s hand (somehow that felt to me the most vicious power move), grabbed the dog, and we were gone.<\/p>\n

A closer inspection of the house in Pittsburgh revealed a knob-and-tube electric system from the 1800s that could catch fire at any time, a crumbling chimney from which a stray brick could topple off and hit me on the head and kill me when I went out to check the mail one morning, and a foundation for the addition (kitchen and deck) that was DIY-built out of dirt columns propped up with bricks, tiles, pieces of wood, license plates, and whatever else the old homeowner had found lying around, and now the dirt columns were turning to dust and blowing away. So a sinkhole, the contrator said ominously, could open up in my kitchen and suck me down tomorrow. Or the next day. Or never. I got an estimate to bring it all up to code: $110,000. I figured, Eh, if I can die in so many ways and I can\u2019t afford to fix them all, I may as well fix none and get the pool and at least die happy.<\/p>\n

But first I\u2019d have to dismantle and dispose of the moldy super-shed dominating the backyard to make room for it. I called 1-800-GOT-JUNK and they quoted me $1,250.<\/p>\n

My friend Tallulah came over and we walked around my neighborhood, interspersing complaints about the expense of things with oohs and aahs over all the abandoned houses made of brick, with arches for doorways, stained glass windows, angels carved into the molding. Who would abandon these stately homes and move into modern, thrown-together prefab houses?<\/p>\n

Can I take a minute to tell you an aside? There\u2019s a mansion across the street from me, condemned. A neighbor told me the story. A doctor had it built for his wife in maybe 1960, with the best of everything, all stone and tile and columns, a fireplace in every room. It cost a million dollars back then! Well, then he got depressed, and he went all over the world looking for a cure. He\u2019d go off with tribes in Africa, South America, Asia, he tried everything. He spent $2.5 million looking for a cure. When nothing worked, he came home and tried the old-fashioned way, a bullet to the brain. Only he missed\u2014didn\u2019t get the whole brain. We don\u2019t know what happened to the wife. They put him in a rest home, yet he refused to sell the house. Deer and groundhogs and rabbits leap about its overgrown grounds. Vines have surrounded it and climbed in through every crack to get a more secure grip; they\u2019re trying to drag it down into the bowels of the earth. But it\u2019s hearty, it\u2019s gonna take another hundred years to kill it.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Tallulah and I were discussing my shed dilemma when a skinny, three-toothed man walking by added his two cents. He said he\u2019d just bought a house for $2,000 and was redoing it himself from top to bottom. I said, “Ooh, wanna come see mine?\u201d He said, \u201cYeah, I’ll come look at it!” I showed him the collapsing basement and he wasn’t scared at all. He said, \u201cThree hundred dollars for labor and you buy the parts and I’ll have it reinforced in a weekend.” I said, \u201cYou’re hired!\u201d Furthermore, he said he\u2019d take the shed apart for free, then reassemble it in his dad\u2019s yard and live in it while he was working on his $2,000 house. Then he told us how he\u2019d recently gotten out of jail and gotten married and a week later caught his wife having sex with his friend and then\u2014I\u2019m not even kidding\u2014his truck died. So this was a very fortuitous meeting for both of us! I could have an $85,000 job done for $300 and a $1,250 job for free, and he’d get the money to fix his truck and a moldy shed to live in. He said the only days he couldn\u2019t work were Sunday and Monday. Because he goes to see his mom on Sundays, and on Mondays he hangs upside down for hours. Because he got shot and the bullet’s still in there, and the only thing that relieves the pain is hanging upside down. I said, “Where were you shot?” He said, “Behind Family Dollar.”<\/p>\n

When Tallulah left, she said, \u201cWow, I can’t believe you weren’t afraid to do that. To say, \u2018Come into my house, weird guy in the alley.\u2019 \u201d I said, \u201cWhy, what could he do to me?\u201d I was thinking she’d say he’d rob me or rape me, but no. She was afraid that I wouldn’t know how to ask him to leave and then I’d be cooking for him and giving him rides to his grandmother\u2019s and such for life, because \u201cyou know that man\u2019s truck\u2019s never getting fixed.\u201d Because that keeps happening to her\u2014she takes care of all the stray men and women in her neighborhood. Tallulah’s an awfully nice lady.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Well, I made a different mistake, one that cost the handyman his life: I paid him in advance. I knew better, but I guess I was moved when he gave me a big ugly painting of a fern he\u2019d found in the basement of his $2,000 house. The next day, he sent a text that he\u2019d died, got hit by a car\u2014again in the Family Dollar parking lot!\u2014but they\u2019d brought him back to life, but he was too sore to be doing any work that involved using any of his limbs or his torso.<\/p>\n

So I found Big Larry to take the shed away for $800. Big Larry had business cards printed, so I knew he had some kind of longevity. And he wore a sleeveless shirt and I could see these were arms for tearing sheds apart. Big Larry got it done.<\/p>\n

I asked Big Larry for a pool company recommendation, and I said to the pool salesman: \u201cI got $8,900 total for the biggest pool you got, delivered and installed.\u201d He said, \u201cIt\u2019ll be there in a week, call the city and get your permit.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cPermit?! This is Pittsburgh, we don\u2019t need no stinking badges.\u201d<\/p>\n

No, I didn\u2019t say that. I called the city. Thus began my nightmare.<\/p>\n

The permit people reminded me of my husband, with their gathering of facts, arguing about them, and finally not doing anything. After FOUR MONTHS of conversating, I\u2019d paid the city $320 and still had no permit, and it was starting to get cold out! So I stopped arguing. I simply lied to the installers and said, \u201cThe permit\u2019s on its way, bring your bulldozer to flatten the yard and put up my pool.\u201d And so they did, and I became an outlaw otter, swimming in my illegal revenge pool every single day, loving it as much as I thought I would and more. I swam back and forth, back and forth, beneath the open sky with my open heart. Sometimes, while doing a leisurely backstroke, I\u2019d see a plane and feel so happy to not be in it. I belong in the water, not in the sky. My big plan was to swim forever, every day, even in winter. But the electric bill to run the filter year-round was too high, so I shut it off.<\/p>\n

One morning shortly thereafter, I noticed the water was green. I\u2019d turned my pool into a petri dish. I called the pool guy and he said it was an algae infestation and it would be $1,300 to fix. \u201cCan\u2019t I do it myself?\u201d I wailed, hopefully for $13 instead of $1,300. \u201cSure,\u201d the pool guy leered, \u201cif you want to climb into an algae infestation without protective gear and risk getting sick so you can mop every inch of the bottom and the sides to loosen the algae before treating it chemically, which could cause an explosion if you don\u2019t get it just right.\u201d<\/p>\n

If only I\u2019d read the manuals, I would have known this would happen. My husband was right\u2014I don\u2019t deserve a pool.<\/p>\n

Luckily, I don\u2019t believe in deserving; I believe in luck. It was luck that caused Neighbor John to peep through the weed trees into my backyard just at that moment and yell: \u201cLisa, your pool is GREEN.\u201d I know, I told him, and it\u2019s $1,300 to fix it. \u201cBullshit!\u201d Neighbor John exploded. He burst through the weed-trees and demanded a mop. He jumped right in my pool with all his clothes on, and when he was done mopping (and screaming \u2026 it was very cold), he asked for baking soda and Clorox and threw a bunch in there, saying that that combination would kill anything. The next day, my pool was blue.<\/p>\n

So now I can add algaecide to the ways this house may kill me, along with an errant chimney brick or electrocution or the sinkhole. Or if I ever go to Family Dollar. But we die on only one day \u2026 the other thirty thousand days, we live. If my husband hadn\u2019t denied me the ocean-tides light-show pool in France, I bet I\u2019d be in it right this very minute, lasting another year, another decade, in the not-right life for me. Instead, I\u2019ve landed straight in the middle of my best irresponsible-flights-of-fancy Princess Otter life in my ramshackle kingdom with valiant knights Big Larry and Neighbor John. I left my husband for a pool. And it was a bargain!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lisa Carver published the nineties zine <\/em>Rollerderby.\u00a0She lives in Pittsburgh. <\/em>Her latest book is\u00a0<\/em>Lover of Leaving, and her Patreon is called\u00a0Philosophy Hour<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy husband was right\u2014I don\u2019t deserve a pool. Luckily, I don\u2019t believe in deserving; I believe in luck.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2407,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68584],"tags":[68840,67827,68712],"class_list":["post-172229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-improvements","tag-divore","tag-featured","tag-lisa-carver"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy Illegal Revenge Pool by Lisa Carver<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"November 24, 2025 \u2013 \u201cMy husband was right\u2014I don\u2019t deserve a pool. 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