So we decided to order a pizza at the pool yesterday. My Mother had sent some money for just such a day. THe sun was shinning, but the breeze was chilly. The water felt warm because of this but it was cold when you got out. Birds were softly chirping in the treeline off in the distance. A group of children were giggling while playing on the playground equipment behind me, and clouds, shaped like Goofy and Pluto were in the sky...right next to the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck clouds. (got you!) I took out my phone, and noticed that the battery was dead.

One of the kids behind me screamed loudly and chased away a few of the birds, but I did not falter. I used the lifegaurd's phone and called the pizza place and the man asks for the address. I tell him it is not an address but the pool and clubhouse and give him the name of the street. The street is three blocks long and at the end of it, the pool is on the right. The man says but you do not know the address. I repeat the name of the street and tell him the pool is at the end of the road.

'But you do not know the street?' He asks in his best I do not understand English voice.

'umm yeah,' and I repeat the name of the street for the third time. I can tell by his reaction that he still does not understand. I start over and tell him the name of the subdivision, then the street and finally the pool is at the end of the street.

'Hold on let me let you talk to the driver.' Mickey Mouse is laughing a little and the birds that left were replaced by different birds, with irritating calls that do not sing cute little jingles.

The driver gets on and says, 'yeah what's the address?'

I explain to him the same as I did to the first guy and he asks, you guess it, 'You don't know the street address?'

Donald duck points at me and chuckles. I repeat again the directions and this time the driver gets it. He says it will be 40 minutes. I am a bit hungry but I will live that long. The kids for some reason want to get into the freezing cold pool, so I join them.

I joined them in the pool up until I was standing knee high and the wind blew strongly, sending chills over my entire body. The lifeguards were throwing a ball across the pool, because no one was in it. This is one week removed from tempratures in the 90s for a few consecutive days. My eldest played with a basketball with the lifeguards and thought it was funny to make them fish it out of the pool.

My daughter dipped her feet in the water and poured with her measure up cups. They had fun for a while and then my wife started. Oh she started and I think Mickey and Donald were egging her on.

'How long ago did you call for the pizza?' 'When is the pizza coming?' 'I sure am hungry!'

I think at one point the Mickey cloud rubbed his belly and put his hands to his mouth the way they would have indicated hunger in an old silent film. He crawled on his hands and knees and Donald mouthed the words, 'no pizza for you!'

I sat back down under the umbrella and since the kids were obviously hungry we got them a small snack and let them drink a little of the juice that we brought. The children playing behind me started chasing each other, causing the youngest of them to yell, no shreik wildly. There is a nerve in most adults that is sensative to this high pitched sound. It causes our necks to crouch down like a turtle's trying to get into our shell, our fingers and our teeth to clench, and our eyes to wince.

The birds started chirping one of the annoyingly catchy tunes from one of those annoying kids shows, that I will nt be able to get out of my head for weeks, and the kids, well, the kids who were not shreiking were singing along. I looked to the sky, where the Mickey and Donald clouds had completely obscurred the sun, and they were dancing to the song. Just as the shreiking, singing and dancing were reaching their climax, the pizza man got out of his car.

'That better be our pizza!!' my wife yelled stopping the man in his tracks. I paid for the pies, took them to the table, smiled and the still screaming kids, nodded and the chirping birds, and held up a piece of pepperoni and sausage pizza as if saluting Mickey and his fine feathered friend. The sun came back out. The kids crammed into their SUV. The birds left and the clouds, even the ones shaped like Goofy and Pluto disapated. I ate my pizza, smiled at my victory, then froze my ass off in that ice cold water for fifteen minutes before the lifeguards announced that it was time to go.