Darn Unreliable Sixth Sense

My sixth sense failed me today, in a pretty significant way. No, I'm not talking about that sixth sense. I'm talking about the real one: the ability to sense where the parts of one's body are. There's no slick monosyllabic word for this sense, and that's probably why it hasn't been added to the list of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. It's real nonetheless. It's the sense that allows you to close your eyes, stretch out your arms, and touch your index fingers together (go ahead, try it--I just did).

Anyway, as I surveyed my first pool today, I cursed the wind storm that had deposited a layer of dust on the plaster of every single on of my pools. The dust means I have the awesome privilege of vacuuming every square inch of every pool--doubling the amount of work it takes to get the job done. I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse. But a little bit later I was transferring leaves from my pool serviceman's net (or "rake" as we say in the biz), things got worse as sense numero seis let me down.

I readjusted the placement of my right foot and stepped not on solid ground as I had expected, but in seven-foot-deep water. Time slows down when you're a pool serviceman and you realize you're about to go all in on a watery hand. I quickly realized what was happening and had just enough time to think "oh gosh, this is the big one, the one that ruins my cell phone" and desperately lean to the left. The slow-motion lean did the trick. It was not "the big one." Only my right leg got soaked. Disaster averted. Final verdict: squishy sock for the rest of the work day (my backup socks were in the laundry).