As everybody knows, there are some things you shouldn’t do in a pool. The list usually includes such tired and often repeated advice as not swimming too soon after you’ve eaten, not swimming during a thunder storm, and not running on the side of the pool.
But there are some things you REALLY shouldn’t do in a pool. Don’t try ANY of these in your pool. Especially, don’t try them in our pool! Here are 30 of them.
1. Urinating in the Pool
You think no-one’s going to notice? Well, they will if you’re standing on the diving board!
2. Having Sex in the Pool
Definitely a bad idea in public swimming pools. In your backyard pool, it’s up to you – but still maybe not such a great idea if your pool is overlooked by nosey neighbors. And not wise if your Great Auntie Maude is in the habit of dropping round unexpectedly.
3. Using Ducks to Eat the Bugs off Your Pool Surface
It seems like a perfectly reasonable, cute, and natural, way to keep your pool clean. Until you remember that what goes into a duck at one end has to come out again at the other.
Related Reading: 25 Ways to Keep Ducks, Geese & Birds Out of Pool
4. Having Sex With Yourself in the Pool
For all the reasons stated in 2, above. Also, it’s even more embarrassing if you get caught.
5. Changing Your Baby’s Nappy in the Pool
Yes, yes. Of course ,it’s convenient, and being in the water saves a lot of otherwise irksome bottom wiping, but, for one reason or another, most health experts tend to frown on this.
6. Changing Your Nappy (Metaphorically ) in the Pool
The Baby Ruth chocolate bar in the pool was funny in Caddyshack. But that was because it was a chocolate bar. If you haven’t seen it click on, Caddyshack Pool.
7. Dropping a Baby Ruth Chocolate Bar in the Pool
As above, it was funny in Caddyshack. But that was because it was a movie. And you’re not Bill Murray.
8. Having Sex with the Pool
Product Safety Australia warns that “Unsafe covers intended for or adapted for use on filter outlets or suction points in swimming pools or spas can come off and create the risk of trapping hair or parts of the body.” It’s just not worth it.
9. Swallowing the Pool Water
Now you know why.
10. Swimming While Drunk
Obviously, you might hurt yourself or drown. More importantly, you might forget not to swallow the water.
11. Overdoing the Pool Chemicals
It’s fine, of course, if you actually like having pink eyes and green hair. But the punk look is so 1970’s!
Related Reading: What To Do If You Add Too Much Muriatic Acid To Pool
12. Pouring Liquid Nitrogen into the Pool
Of course, the dry-ice thing looks really cool, but the teeny-weeny drawback is that all the air in that rock-concert, billowing white fog stuff is actually devoid of oxygen. So, if you’re in the pool at the same time, so are you. Watch the effects in this new report on a pool party in Mexico: Liquid Nitrogen in Pool.
13. Using the Roof of the House as a Diving Board
The Internet and Youtube are awash with examples of this. Not infrequently, the videos involve the individuals missing the pool and breaking their legs or feet. Not a sport that attracts much corporate sponsorship – outside of the wheelchair industry.
14. Riding a BMX Bike off the Roof of Your House and Into the Pool
As above, there are plenty of examples on Youtube. Also, as above, there’s not much in the way of sponsorship. Curiously, it’s a practice not recommended by doctors…or pool companies…or bicycle manufacturers.
15. Trampolining Into the Pool
Yet again, there are plenty of videos on the internet. To be fair, on most of the videos people don’t actually miss the pool: they merely miss the pool by a bit. Of course, the bit they miss by tends to be exactly equal to the sharp edge of the pool. Also, people tend to forget that this is, in fact, a contact sport; and what their body almost inevitably comes into contact with is the aforementioned sharp edge of the pool.
16. Playing Pool Volleyball with Chunks of Pure Sodium
Pure sodium spontaneously burns and explodes on contact with water. You could try mixing it with white phosphorus which is stable under water. Probably a bad idea, though; white phosphorus spontaneously burns on contact with damp air.
17. Having a Pink, One-Eyed, Slightly Charred Teddy Bear Float in Your Pool
For reasons that nobody has quite figured out, this tends to presage that something breaking bad’s going to happen.
Related Reading: Best Giant Pool Floats
18. Letting Your Pet Crocodile Swim in the Pool
Plenty of people are happy to have their dogs jump in and swim in the backyard pool. But if your pet is a crocodile, maybe it isn’t so smart.
Related Reading: 20 Ways to Keep Iguanas out of the pool (Get Rid of Iguanas)
19. Keeping Fish in Your Pool
For one thing, they play havoc with the chemical balance. For another, the chemical balance plays havoc with them. The following are especially not recommended:
• Piranhas
• Sharks
• Killer Whales (OK, they’re not fish. But do you want one in your pool?)
• Box Jelly Fish
• Electric Eels
• Blue-Ringed Octopuses
• Giant Squid
• Candiru (Who they? They’re those little Amazonian fish that swim up your urethra . OK, this may be an urban myth, but probably not worth chancing it).
20. Spear Fishing
Usually a waste of time. Unless you’re bored with having fish in your pool.
21. Swimming in a Mohair Sweater
Don’t ask us why; something to do with Bare Naked Ladies. See, Having Sex in the Pool, above.
22. Challenging You Mother to Swimming Races
That is, if your mother happens to be Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest.
23. Using Your Pool as an Oil Change Pit for Your Car.
Laying a couple of planks over your pool, and then standing in the cooling water while you drain your car’s sump and change the engine oil may seem attractive. Beware, however! This may void your warranty.
24. Playing Polo (As Opposed to Water Polo) in Your Pool
The main drawback, apart from having to clean up after the polo ponies, is defending when your goal is in the deep end.
Related Reading: 50 Fun Swimming Pool Games for Adults or Kids
25. Skinny Dipping with Christie Brinkley
Many people might not necessarily view this as something to be avoided. However, it can have serious consequences – especially if you’re Chevvy Chase in National Lampoon’s Vacation.
26. Rigging Up a DIY Swim-Up Electric Barbecue Grill in the Middle Your Pool
It’s not so much the BBQ that’s the problem: it’s the fact that your power cord is hooked up to a domestic extension lead that’s floating on a pair of rubber tongs!
27. Staging a Medieval Reenactment Event in Your Pool
The problem isn’t so much the reenactment, it’s more wearing the armour – especially in the deep end.
28. Jousting in Your Pool
See Staging Medieval Reenactments and Playing Polo, above.
29. Using the Pool Return Jets as a Source of DIY Colonic Irrigation
Never mind that health experts are divided on the benefits of colonic irrigation. The water pressure from the return jets is likely to blow anything stuck in your colon clean up into your brain! Unless, if you think this is a good idea, it may be there already.
30. Using Your Pool as a Sheep Dip
Tempting as the idea might sound, (a) sheep dip chemicals are toxic to humans, (b) unless you have a very narrow swimming pool, it’s hard to manage that many sheep in the water all at once, and (c) pool scoop nets make lousy dipping sticks.
Related Reading:
Can You Swim with a Broken Toe?
Should Dogs Be Allowed In Swimming Pools?
