Listen to me: Buy a kiddie pool for your adult self this summer
If you're an adult seeking to cool off in the summer, especially if you live in an urban area, your options are garbage. Lakes are far. Public pools are overrun. Beaches have terrible chairs.
That's why so many of us have given in and purchased baby pools for ourselves and our friends. As I type this, there are multiple kiddie pool (and, good god, dumpster pool) parties planned all across Brooklyn.
And even though sharing is caring or whatever, I'm encouraging all of our readers to practice a little self-care and purchase a kiddie pool for themselves this summer.
Your miserable, disgusting feet deserve it.
Don't get me wrong -- kiddie pools are a depressing alternative to real pools. The hose water is freezing, and there's no proper filtration system. Kiddie pools are a breeding ground for dead ladybugs and little brown things that are definitely rabid raccoon turds, even though your friends don't believe you.
Once you use a kiddie pool once, it's never clean again.
They're also depressingly small. (I guess that's whole "kiddie part" about it). Unless you're two feet tall, you can forget the water climbing any higher than your lower thigh.
Face it: Kiddie pools are like a ice cold bath you take outside. And they're the only thing I've got going.
There are so many unexpected benefits to being an adult in a kiddie pool, including but not limited to:
1. You don't have to share it with other people's kids
Forget a public pool full of fifth grader snot. Purchase a kiddie pool that you can use in the privacy of your own home and that can fit no more than 1.5 large adult butts.
2. You don't have to share it with anyone at all!
Our society doesn't do nearly enough sharing. But every once in a while private property is a good thing, Karl Marx, especially when it comes to baby pools. You shouldn't have to share toenail bacteria with anyone but yourself.
3. You actually have the funds to purchase one
You're never going to have the money to retire, forget buy a real pool. So gather all your backpack change together and head to your nearest shitty supermarket to purchase a kiddie pool upfront.
4. It can fit on your fire escape
Bad news: you're also never going to have enough money for a backyard, so might as well buy a pool the size of a cardboard box.
5. It's soothing for your tired dawgs (feet)
Once you hit thirty, kids, your feet are a constant source of pain. Give them a break and drown them in some freezing water while you, errr, *mockingly* read the latest issue of goop.
6. They're on brand if you identify as a fun millennial
Sometimes squeezing into a stereotype is a good thing. Embrace your Thrillist side and go all in on a kiddie pool and irony.
7. Your friends will call you "quirky"
Being liked by your friends is a good thing!
8. It's a cold thing that's not air conditioning
Air conditioning is a pernicious threat to many women in the workplace like myself. If only more workplaces set their temperatures at normal levels and offered staff their own private kiddie pools.
9. It's a summer-time activity that involves sitting
Not biking, not hiking, not camping. Good old-fashioned, poisonous for your health, sitting.
10. You're an adult and nobody can tell you what to do
You can't be "too old" for a kiddie pool. Listen to your heart/my listicle. Go out there, dip your toes in a sparkling new kiddie pool, and taste your own discount paradise.
Heather was the Web Trends reporter at Mashable NYC. Prior to joining Mashable, Heather wrote regularly for UPROXX and GOOD Magazine, was published in The Daily Dot and VICE, and had her work featured in Entertainment Weekly, Jezebel, Mic, and Gawker. She loves small terrible dogs and responsible driving. Follow her on Twitter @wear_a_helmet.
