Splish Splash

Although most of my time is spent fighting the good fight against mold and its plans for world  sheetrock domination, every once in a while my office receives a strange request for a more unusual sort of job. These inquiries are often more than a little vague, with even the client unclear as to what sort of testing they need or "need". Guess who is assigned to figure this out, not to mention find the appropriate equipment, learn how to use it (and act like I've done it a million times), and then put together a report using facts found off Google. If you guessed me, you guessed right! 

Way to go! You is smart!

A recent random request went a little something like this, "Ummm, there's some stuff growing on the bottom of our pool...". A colleague thought I should refuse to do the job, "You don't have any proper training in this. What if you contract some sort of disease?!?". I will admit, he made an excellent point. Although for those of you unfamiliar with NYC summers, in addition to the insufferably hot temperatures, the humidity makes the air so thick that it becomes difficult to breath. After learning that the pool remained open to building residents and no reports of any disease outbreaks, my response to the job request despite my friend's warning was: FUCK YEAH!!!!

Can anybody say pool party?!

Following a little research and a lot of harassing phone calls made to forrealz scientists, I ended up testing the pool for mold, algae, and slime forming bacterial growth. Fun, right? For strictly scientific and documentary purposes, I decided it was necessary to purchase an underwater disposable camera. Side note - finding one of these cameras, even during the summer, is MUCH harder than it sounds. Significant mental/emotional/physical/metaphysical preparation is necessary before embarking on such a quest. Just an FYI.

This may be hard for some of you to believe, but an ugly, dark substance located on the bottom of a pool can be photographed only so many times. What to do with the rest of the film...? Did I even have to ask? Photo shoot. Obvi. My colleague, who shall be known as Porkchop, and I covered all the basics - handstands, pretending to be mermaids, thumbs up, foam noodle fights. Please enjoy the action shot below. I'm channeling my inner mysterious/sexy/nerdy/intellectual mermaid scientist persona. 

You know what else I can swab...

Photo credits: Borat, Spongebob Squarepants, Kodak