Living with Placide was always an adventure. Being single, Placide took advantage of his marital status the way some people devote energy to sports, work, or other hobbies.

But the man wasn't unfaithful. Just never, ever lonely. And if you think this is slander or libel, I have proof at my fingertips from a now rather famous small claims court case I will write about later.....

Anyhow, coming home to a different car in the driveway was not an uncommon occurence. And the women Placide met were always interesting.

So one day I come home and Placide is there, full of dirt, sweaty from some adventure. The house is otherwise quiet and the driveway barren of strange vehicles. Placide proceeds to tell me of his new acquaintance....

Ok, so she was a stripper. Who am I to judge? And she has a kid, is divorced, you know the script if you've ever been a single guy on the dating scene in New Orleans. I'm sure she was 12 credit hours short of law school or medical school, or as all the lingerie models at the Beachcorner professed: nursing school. Whatever....

So all day Placide had been working on a project at this girl's house. He was building an above-ground swimming pool in her backyard for the kid and all his friends. The project, thankfully, was completed except for filling the pool with water.

Then Placide tells me about the planned BBQ for evening festivities. Do I want to come? All her friends are coming and some are bringing their kids. No mention was made of appropriate attire, and since the strippers hadn't discussed swimsuit fashion at all that day, according to my friend, there was the overwhelming prospect of adult naughty behavior after the kids were tucked away. Then he hit me with the invitation to tag along.

Let's see.....swimming pool + liquor + strippers + free food = I'm there.

So we get to the house. Most of the people are already there. The pool is nearly filled. They had been filling it for hours with two garden hoses run from the house next door, vacated by vacationing neighbors who may wonder at their next water bill....honey, I think there's a leak somewhere...

Well, I circled the pool and marvelled at the lack of appropriate construction, but then the strippers started putting their kids into the pool as the water level reached the top. So we went inside, it was dusk, the porch lights were on. We were making great conversation all around, Placide was the hero, I sang his praises to everyone, and we were very quickly drunk and had fallen in lust two or three times already.

Suddenly, around the 5th or 6th drink, we heard a loud crash from the backyard. Placide and I, Paramedic instincts kicking in, quickly ran to the back yard only to be greeted by a torrent of water.

A side of the pool had given way, and quickly the whole fragile construction began folding in. Unfortunately, all the little kids were still in the pool. As the water lapped at our feet little stripper kids went floating by towards the street. Placide and I picked them up, these drowning, crying guppies with floaties around their arms.

We finally collected all the stripper kids and went to the backyard, surveying the damage. Because of our big mouths earlier, everyone there knew the person responsible for the construction of the pool. Placide looked at me, and uttered the phrase all medics know so well, especially when the scene of a call becomes dangerous or tedious, ripe with citizen complaints.

"Let's go."

And as quickly as I had accepted the invitation to the festivities, I had my keys in hand and we made a quick exit. No excuses were offered, no departing drinks were mixed. So we left, dripping wet with the cries of anguishing kids lifting from the back yard.

Not our finest moment, but we did get a great laugh out of it on the way home.