So I had a near brush with death the other day. No, I wasn’t driving my oversized SUV through the roundabout like I was a wannabe road racer (this has happened). I was just being the responsible family man maintaining his pool – brushing, removing leaves, shocking it with chlorine.

Near drowning you ask, impatiently? Wrong again…pull up a chair eager grasshopper…let me tell you about it.

After my pool pump stopped doing its one and only job I had hired it to do, I spent hours trying to troubleshoot the problem: changing valves, priming it with buckets of water, and even bringing in additional reinforcements to create a flow (i.e., the garden hose), all to no avail.

I am usually Joe Tenacious with any problem, but after an hour I finally got so tired and frustrated that I temporarily lost my focus (took my eye off the ball as it was heading toward my head) and unwittingly turned off the power switch while holding a screwdriver in that same hand (Clue #1).

Let’s back up. There is generally a plastic safety card which hangs between the switch/timer wheel and the electrical contact screws. Mine has been missing since we bought the house four years ago and I have just been too lazy to insert a new one (Clue #2).

I have had minor shocks before. You know, like those shocking joke books you might buy at the magic store at Disneyland? Even those prank books, with only the power of an alkaline battery, send an uncomfortable shock up your arms. But this was no joke book. This was a major shock that went up my right arm (the one holding the screwdriver) to my chest.

I have regularly shocked my pool with chlorine over the years, but I never expected the pool to shock me back!! I used to mock people who hired others to maintain their pool. I have now seen the light…well, I almost did see THE light.

There’s a movie called a Million Ways to Die in the West. I haven’t seen it, but with a million ways, this death by pool switch really should be in there, or at least in the outtakes (ignoring the fact that this is a Western set in the late 1800’s when there was no chlorine, no pool pump switches, and cowboys had to share their pools with the cattle). Perhaps my common sense has been shocked senseless, as well?

I am lucky. I get to call this one of those near-miss-in-life events…one that would have gone untold had fate worked in a different direction. With this renewed lease on life, I now have to go out and buy a replacement safety card for the pool switch. Where did I leave my helmet and driving gloves?