Ok! Here is the Hot tub story. I hope you will find it as amusing as I found it......well....you will see. Due to character limitations, I will be forced to break the tale into parts. Sorry!

Mrs. CXXC has wanted a Hot tub for quite a while. We have talked about it for years and intended to purchase one in each home we have owned. At long last, we decide that the home in Savannah will get one. WOOO HOOOO!!!!

First question to the reader is: Have you ever been to Savannah in the summer? 104 with 99% humidity. Why the HELL would I want a hot tub here? DOH!!! This is going to be a tepid tub at best.

Mrs. CXXC is, as usual, working all the time and asked me to go look at the tubs and see what is out there. I hit the pool and spa places and report back with pictures and numbers.

It came down to one tub but the price was WAY more than Mrs. CXXC wanted to spend. Granted, this thing did everything you could imagine. I think it even had a crock pot setting. The food processor attachment on the side for the sliced veggies was a nice addition too! But $8k was too much for Mrs. CXXC. She found what she wanted but didn’t want to pay that much. I spoke with dealers and most of them would come down $1k or even $1.5k but that was it.

We held off for a while but MRs. CXXC asked me to keep looking around. I looked for both new and used in the want adds. I stumbled upon Craigslist and found TONS of them. The only problem with craigslist is that when you are looking for something like this, you are not going to find it down the street. So my search lead me to the Atlanta suburbs. And there it was. An 8 person Hot Tub with more jets than the space shuttle.

Woo Hoo! The price was AMAZING! 1/10th what the spa place was asking. I fired off an E-mail and made a counter bid of ½ what they were asking. (Why not try? Did I mention that I will try to get the best deal on a stick of gum if I can?) They replied almost instantly with “YES! When can you pick it up?” I immediately started hitting myself for not offering less! DOH! Plans were made to go pick the item up the following weekend. Now for the logistical matter at hand. How the heck was I going to get an 8.5 wide tub and all from Atlanta to Savannah? Oh boy! I really stepped into it now.

Luckily, we had made a few friends in the area in our short time in GA. One gent had this HUGE 16 foot trailer. As I have an F-150, all set and ready for hauling, everything was good to go. Now I just needed someone to help me get it on and off the trailer. Another call and sure enough, I had a helper. So the plans were made, the date arrived. My friend showed up with his trailer. First thing that should have told me I was in trouble was his vehicle. He pulled the trailer with an F-250, 4X4 Jacked up at least 16 inches higher than my truck with Mud Monster tires. I lust his truck.

We hook the trailer up and off I go to meet my helper. At 08:30 we were on our way to pick up the tub. The 5 hour drive passes rather quickly. The gas happens to pass just a quickly. At this time, gasoline was running around $3.85 a gallon. I ended up spending nearly $350.00 in gas just for the pick-up and delivery of the Hot tub. Good thing I got it so cheap! (This will be a constant theme through out this blog.)

When we get to the house to pick up the tub, the owner (we thought) was in the drive. The yard looked like it had not been mowed in months. (it had not) After a brief introduction, the owner (we thought) shows us to the back yard and points to the tub. This thing is HUGE! There it stood, beside the house, the boxing still in tact. The cover was not quite fully on but in great condition. From my immediate view, this was a great deal.

“Ummm,” I mentioned as I gestured to the Holly bushes SOROUNDING THE ENTIRE TUB, “How are we going to get this thing out of there?”

“The owners Ex-wife will be here in a few minutes, we can ask her what she wants to do.”

ALARM! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!!!!

“The Ex-wife? Does the EX-HUSBAND know about this?” I ask trying to mask my alarm.

“He died two months ago. She is closing his estate!”

Bummer. So we wait!

“Cut them down!” She says after arriving 30 minutes later.

Have you ever cut down 15 year old Holly bushes with a hack saw? Trust me when I tell you, It takes FOREVER!!!!! Who knew I was going to be doing landscaping. Good thing I got this tub so Cheap!

Once the bushes were removed, the task of pulling the cover and sides off began.

Did I mention that the cover was not completely on? The rain had collected in the tub for the two years (That is how long the owner had the tub but did not use it). The tub was nearly ½ full of what I could only describe as pond water. There were more frogs in the tub than we could count. The lid itself was a haven for Camel Crickets! (Many people think they are spiders but they are just quiet crickets) Once the lid was lifted off completely, the jumping and splashing activity was INSANE! Frogs and crickets took to the air like doves at the Olympics.

After 5 minutes or so, the pond calmed down enough for us to begin the detachment of the base boxing. Hammers and pry bars made short work of the weather bleached wood. The siding was in great condition even though it was bleached by both sun and hot tub chemicals. The first panel fell away with ease.

If Mrs. CXXC was standing next to me, I would have been out the money for the tub and playing St. Christopher carrying her across the yard. She would have climbed ME like a tree. The number of roaches that scurried about once the side panel was removed were more numerous than the frogs AND crickets combined! They ran EVERYWHERE! The “Ex-wife” fled the area immediately.

I guess I should tell you, dear reader, that I did a stint as a cable installation tech. I have crawled under more homes, seen more spiders (some poisonous) bees, snakes (one poisonous), roaches, crickets, rats, mice, an Opossum, cats, dogs, ladybugs…….the list goes on. So this little situation really didn’t bother me nor surprise me. My friend, on the other hand, was not at all pleased. But, if you can’t abuse your friends, who can you abuse?

We removed the sides in minutes. The roaches were in the grass and remaining bushes. Those that decided to hide in the nooks and crannies of the tub would find their demise in a can of RAID soon enough. The task of getting the water out of the tub was at hand. Beneath the tub, among the remaining crickets, (they didn’t have nearly the issues with our invasion as the roaches did) pumps and power unit was a single drainage port. It was a small spigot that you could attach a hose to for filling without having one hanging out the side when you needed to add a little water. We turned the valve and slowly, the black pond water drained.

As the “pond” drained, I prepared to move the trailer to the back of the house. Now, remember the height difference in our vehicles? YEP! The trailer kept grounding itself and dragging the asphalt each time I tried to make the slight incline to the driveway. In my last attempt, the trailer became completely lodged into the tar and would not budge forward or back. I was stuck and blocking, not only the driveway, but the ENTIRE STREET!

It took nearly 30 minutes to get the trailer to release and move it without being hitched to the truck. We rolled it by hand to the side of the street and began to worry. How were we going to get this tub from the back yard to the trailer sitting on the side of the street! ACK!

Like an angle from the heavens above, the gent we first mistook as the owner returned (He had to get a few items to assist the “Ex” in cleaning the house.) with a 10 foot trailer. The plan was coming into shape. He drove his vehicle to the back of the house, backed the trailer up and beside the tub and we were ready to lift and flip the tub over and onto the trailer. PERFECT! Well, not so much!

The tub was still half full! The water had stopped draining. We had a clog! Looking about the yard, which had not been mowed in 2 months, I found a one gallon pail. I set myself to the task of bailing while my newly abused friend disconnected hoses, pumps and electronics. Bail one, three frogs. Bail two more frogs. Each pail filled with water had no less than two frogs. It took nearly 30 minutes to get the water level low enough for us to be able to lift one side. The tub smelled like pond scum. It was slimy and just plain disgusting. Good thing I got it so cheap!

My friend and I got everything disconnected and tried to lift the tub into position on the trailer. Not on a bet or with a gun to our heads could we lift this thing. My friend is not a small man. Neither am I. However, the tub must weigh 400 pounds. (527 pounds according to the manufacturer). We enlisted the Gent to help us flip the tub onto his trailer. The three of us struggled with the bulk, ended up getting completely soaked from the remaining water but eventually muscled the tub into place on the trailer without damaging it.

Once beside the other trailer, the task of flipping it over and lashing it down was easy. It took us a total of 4.5 hours from arrival to departure. We had a 5 hour drive ahead of us. That passed quickly but there was still the matter of getting the tub into my back yard. The stockade fence would prove to be a hurdle, not to mention the issue or the weight! I need more men. One phone call later, I had 5 men ready to assist in the morning. Woo Hoo! And all it would cost me is a case of beer! Man! It is a great thing I got this tub so cheap.

Part two:

Installing the Hot Tub! Peanut finds Jimmy Hoffa and How I learned that the power outage at my house had nothing to do with the hot tub installation!