Maybe it's Phelps Phever. Or the whole Staycation thing. Whatever the reason, somebody out there can't get enough of Columbia Association pools this summer.
"Almost like every day a pool calls and says, 'We got hopped last night,'" said CA aquatics director John Herdson.
After-hours dips can be dangerous because there's no lifeguard around. This year, they're also messy. A misguided Caddyshack fan seems to be among the pool hoppers.
After breaking into the pools, he or she or they leave something behind. Unfortunately, it's not Baby Ruth. It's the real thing.
That's happened a total of three times at the Dasher Green and Hopewell pools alone, said Chad Wilson, head guard at both. He recalled one deposit left on the diving board.
The messes have been confined to the deck area, so they could be cleaned up without having to close the pools to chemically "shock" the water, Herdson said.
Pool partyers also have tossed poolside tables, chairs and umbrellas into the water. Herdson estimated the damage to those items at about $1,000. CA is offering a $100 reward to anyone who helps nab the pool partyers.
Ice Qube crashed the pool party
A vendor at this week's New York International Gift Fair stoops to this:
"Michael Phelps at NYIGF?" reads the subject line of a blast e-mail.
"Michael Phelps will not be at our [booth] at the New York International Gift Fair, sadly," the e-mail itself concedes. "But we will be."
The vendor is Ice-Qube Preparedness Solutions, maker of "premium emergency and disaster preparedness kits," which I take to mean the bottled water in the kits is Evian.
Speedo, Visa and other companies shelled out big bucks to float their names with Phelps'. Ice-Qube crashed the pool party.
Connect the dots
Four or five teens were spotted handing out pro-slots fliers one night last week in Ocean City, where government officials from across the state met for a conference of local government officials. "They all piled out of a van with Pennsylvania plates," writes my spy. "I thought maybe they were from the same firm Ehrlich and Steele used to import people to work the polls." ... My column about Baltimore Barbies, a series of imaginary dolls created on the Internet by some unknown jokester, generated a few complaints. Not because they were un-PC, but because they misplaced some of the stereotypes. Reader Thomas Sprenkle's gripe: "I have to say I doubt the creator of the spoof knows Baltimore that well. The Roland Park Barbie lives in a cookie cutter house and has face lifts? Perhaps someone confused Roland Park with Lutherville or Timonium." Lesbian Mount Vernon Barbie didn't ring true to Sprenkle either. "Mount Vernon is the preserve of gays," he writes. "Lesbians and feminazis tend to prefer Charles Village."
