Husbandry: Part 37

Hot Tub

I married a hot tub.  Wait a minute.  That doesn’t sound quite right.  When Virginia and I were dating and we decided to move in together, we had to decide whose house we were going to live in.  I, of course, preferred my house.  Two complete kitchens and a great patio for entertaining.  New roof, new plumbing, mostly new electrical, new paint, new insulation, new furnace, new water heater, new refrigerator, new woodstove.  Shoot I had spent a fortune getting the house ready for my retirement so I wouldn’t have to spend another damn dollar on maintenance.  I was set.  Things were perfect.

But, Virginia seemed to prefer her house.  Good roof, mostly new plumbing, mostly new electrical, desperately needing new paint and a new furnace and a new water heater, new insulation and a new fridge.  And her kids had strong opinions on where their mother should live.  My kids maybe preferred we move into my house because of their own comfort zone, but my daughter and her husband had not so secret desires to purchase my house from me when I moved into a nursing home.  But they would prefer that I wait for three years before I moved into gruel and drool because they didn’t have quite enough saved up to jump into a purchase agreement quite yet.

But Virginia had a hot tub.  I always wanted a hot tub.  At least since 1975 or so.  One afternoon she invited me to join her in the hot tub and I knew at that moment where we should domicile.  It was heaven.  The jets hit my arthritic back and legs in just the right spots.  It was perfect. 

In 1975 or thereabouts, when my late wife, Linda, and I lived in Moscow, Idaho, pre-children, hot tubs were just coming on to the scene.  Being a college town, some enterprising entrepreneur decided to open a hot-tub business where he rented out hot-tubs by the hour.  Linda and I decided one weekend evening that we should try it out.  There were four or five hot tubs, each with its own private dressing room and visually separated from the others.  It was a chilly fall evening and we stripped down, got into the hot tub, turned on the jets and marveled at the night sky.  It was lovely and mostly romantic.  Yet, while the various hot-tubs were visually separated, there was just a fence between them and there was clearly no sound barrier.  So when the foursome next to us arrived, the romantic nature of our quiet bliss evaporated like the steam coming off the water. 

A few weeks later I was at work when Loren, the warehouse manager, stopped by and told me that he and his wife, Mary, had just purchased a hot tub for their house in Palouse and asked if Linda and I wanted to come over for a soak and a hot toddy.  I assured him that would be wonderful.  He mentioned that swim suits were optional and, knowing my wife, I assured him we would be wearing swim suits.  It wasn’t clear whether he and Mary would be in suits or not.  But as it turned out, they respected our clothing option and we all relaxed in their hot tub.  Mary commented that wearing suits was probably a good idea, especially in the winter, because the previous week when it was 10 degrees outside, Loren, who was suitless, got out of the tub only to find that the sliding glass door into the house was locked.  Apparently, he got a little close to the door and his damp penis stuck to the glass and he couldn’t back away.  He banged on the door for a few minutes until Mary heard him, and she had to get a pitcher of warm water to free his private parts from their frigid prison.

Fortunately, our hot tub is not a clothing-optional tub.  So, if you decide to join us for a soak, bring a suit.  We take no responsibility for frigid, rigid digits.