Well, as per typical pattern at this point, I find myself yet again in the unenviable position of taking over the area. It has been a very long 5 days since this Rogers takeover began, and in light of the fact that the pad is no longer on fire and the small army of roaches living in the walls as of 3 days ago is dealt with for now, we come to the end of our week and I find myself with time to email home. Somehow, despite the many many times my efforts have come up short this week, I'm still alive. Key word is: "somehow". It's now officially October, and as October is a time for scary stories, I figured this week I'd treat you all to the absolutely terrifying scary story of that big stupid hot tub, because believe me, it was one heck of a nightmare.
Our story begins on Saturday morning, as I desperately tried to find something to fill the time with. Days like these are called "Snow Days" in selective missionary terminology, because on a Snow Day the pages of your daily planner are blank, and by extension, white as snow. Luckily, before I underwent a complete nervous breakdown trying to decide what to do, Elder Hoke (designated phone carrier for the time being) received a call from a member in the ward named Shawn. He was calling because his ministering family needed help moving an entire hot tub from Kailua to Kaneohe, and this thing was supposedly an 800 lbs heavy, 8x8 foot jacuzzi, so clearly he needed all the help he could get when it came to actually moving the thing. This call saved my Saturday, and I figured it would take a decent enough chunk of time out of the day that by the time it was over with, I'd know what to do with the rest of the day. So we met up with Shawn at the chapel, hopped aboard his trusty white Tacoma, and rode the majestic vessel all the way down to Kailua to pick up the pool. On the way there Shawn let us in on the reason we were doing this, which is explained via image 'A1' below. (now is when you take a moment to appreciate my epic scribbles)
So basically, the idea was that the Stangers really needed that hot tub, or more accurately, that SISTER Stanger really needed it to soak in. After looking around online for one they discovered that hot tubs in Hawaii are not a cheap commodity, and that's when they took to Craigslist. The next miraculous development was that-Surprise!-somebody in Kailua had one that they no longer wanted and couldn't sell it anywhere. Eventually the Kailua Clan (which is how I'm going to refer to them from here on out) decided that if they couldn't get somebody to pay them to take the hot tub out of their yard, they'd give it away free to anybody who was willing to show up and move the darn thing. The point here is that the Kailua Clan wanted it gone, and Sis. Stanger wanted it in her yard. Therefor, a deal was made to mutually benefit both parties. Now I don't know about you, but I don't know that I would just give away a hot tub for free unless I was reeeeeeallly sick of having it around. And most likely, that meant that this thing was either incredibly ugly, or incredibly useless, so I became a bit nervous that this service project was going to take up a bit more time than I thought. Snow Day though, so who cares. Anyway, we arrived in our trusty white steed, and found the Stangers, who were already there trying to find some plywood. Why? I had no idea, but I would soon come to find out all too well. The free hot tub itself was actually in pretty ok condition, or at least you would think that just from taking a quick look at it, but it had no cover, so the inside was full of this weird brown liquid. I was about 70% sure that it had its own ecosystem living in it, but after clearing it out by filling red solo cups and dumping them out (like how you'd bail in a boat or raft), we eventually had no murky brown water left inside the jacuzzi, and had found no signs of life in the process, so I decided my hypothesis was in fact, wrong. Now that we had an empty old jacuzzi we were told by the Kailua crew, who had extremely thick Indian accents by the way, that the reason they never used it was because the mother was broken. That seemed like all it was to be honest, but oh.... oh boy.... things went downhill from there. Together, all who were to be involved in the process of moving the massive hot tub decided on a plan, which is shown below in image 1b.
Now then, in the aftermath of planning this event out, we all set forth immediately into action to get this thing moving. The first step was to cut the power wire connecting the hot tub itself to the actual power supply. From what I remember the potential danger was 200 volts, which was why the Kailua Crew told us the power was off before we began attempting to sever the cord. Minute after painful minute the rest of us sat in utter suspense as Bro. Stanger senior tried to use a Boy Scout pocket knife to Cut the Rope (reference intended). At this point allow me to introduce our squad. And by squad, I mean, well this:
After a grand total of 5 minutes, Senior Stanger decided the scouting knife was useless and instead bit the cord, which worked surprisingly quickly. After the first challenge had been conquered, the entire crew proceeded to push the stupid hot tub off of the ground onto its side, where it landed on top of the dolleys which were in turn, on top of the plywood. Señor Stanger then asked for two volunteers to move the plywood along with the jacuzzi as it made its grand journey from the back yard to the trailer. This was a very long process, and after about 30 minutes of moving a full size hot tub aboard the dolleys, we began to notice that the hot tub was falling apart. The dang thing was rotted almost completely through, and by the time it made its oversize way to the undersized trailer, there wasn't a single piece of exterior left on 3 of the 4 sides. All the rotted wood seemed to break off at random intervals, and the entire frame broke into pieces when we placed it on the trailer. All of this ended up taking 2½ hours. And that's just the first half of this story, because if you do a quick Google maps search on the distance between Kailua, Oahu and Kaneohe, Oahu you will discover that this thing, which could barely balance and practically had no structure left to speak of, had to then ride up and down the uneven and bumpy highway until arriving at the Stangers actual house. Unfortunately, RM Stanger drove a little too fast, and the result of this haste making was that pieces of this rotted pile of trash kept flying off onto the road, and the entire jacuzzi tilted to the point where it looked like it was going to fall off the tiny trailer! Miraculously, thanks in no small part to the Elder Hoke, Shawn, and myself all praying aloud the entire 30 minute drive that the crippled old pool would somehow survive its journey to its new home, we arrived while the hot tub still had at least one beam of frame left on it. You wouldn't believe how screwed up it looked, and honestly with the amount of fixing they were going to have to do, it clearly would have been cheaper and easier just to buy a new one, but I refrained from telling any of the Stangers that, because we were already 4 hours into this project and we would all sooner be damned for eternity than give up the fight when the hot tub was just 150 feet from its final goal. Unfortunately the next obstacle was the monumental toast of getting the rotted remains of this stupid jacuzzi through the gate that separated the front yard from the back yard, and the dolleys added enough height that the tub could no longer fit. Here's image 2C to explain what I mean.
What to do next stumped our little crew for a while, but after a short water break we returned to the rotting beast, determined to somehow, by might or by mind, we were going to get that apple-juicing hot tub to the backyard, and we would do it with or without the help of those dolleys. After somehow getting the dolleys out from under the thing, a process that took an entire hour on its own, we carefully moved the plywood to create a trail over the grass leading to our final destination, and proceeded to roll the hot tub. Yes, physically roll the freaking full size permanent hot tub on its sides until it landed on the only side it had left whose wall and frame were still in tact. From there, the idea became that all of us together would push the hot tub over the surface of the plywood until arriving in the backyard. Oh yes folks, it was time for the main event. Pushing a hot tub. This was going to be interesting.
We spent basically our entire day doing this. And I feel great.
It's time I'm never getting back.
Our story begins on Saturday morning, as I desperately tried to find something to fill the time with. Days like these are called "Snow Days" in selective missionary terminology, because on a Snow Day the pages of your daily planner are blank, and by extension, white as snow. Luckily, before I underwent a complete nervous breakdown trying to decide what to do, Elder Hoke (designated phone carrier for the time being) received a call from a member in the ward named Shawn. He was calling because his ministering family needed help moving an entire hot tub from Kailua to Kaneohe, and this thing was supposedly an 800 lbs heavy, 8x8 foot jacuzzi, so clearly he needed all the help he could get when it came to actually moving the thing. This call saved my Saturday, and I figured it would take a decent enough chunk of time out of the day that by the time it was over with, I'd know what to do with the rest of the day. So we met up with Shawn at the chapel, hopped aboard his trusty white Tacoma, and rode the majestic vessel all the way down to Kailua to pick up the pool. On the way there Shawn let us in on the reason we were doing this, which is explained via image 'A1' below. (now is when you take a moment to appreciate my epic scribbles)
So basically, the idea was that the Stangers really needed that hot tub, or more accurately, that SISTER Stanger really needed it to soak in. After looking around online for one they discovered that hot tubs in Hawaii are not a cheap commodity, and that's when they took to Craigslist. The next miraculous development was that-Surprise!-somebody in Kailua had one that they no longer wanted and couldn't sell it anywhere. Eventually the Kailua Clan (which is how I'm going to refer to them from here on out) decided that if they couldn't get somebody to pay them to take the hot tub out of their yard, they'd give it away free to anybody who was willing to show up and move the darn thing. The point here is that the Kailua Clan wanted it gone, and Sis. Stanger wanted it in her yard. Therefor, a deal was made to mutually benefit both parties. Now I don't know about you, but I don't know that I would just give away a hot tub for free unless I was reeeeeeallly sick of having it around. And most likely, that meant that this thing was either incredibly ugly, or incredibly useless, so I became a bit nervous that this service project was going to take up a bit more time than I thought. Snow Day though, so who cares. Anyway, we arrived in our trusty white steed, and found the Stangers, who were already there trying to find some plywood. Why? I had no idea, but I would soon come to find out all too well. The free hot tub itself was actually in pretty ok condition, or at least you would think that just from taking a quick look at it, but it had no cover, so the inside was full of this weird brown liquid. I was about 70% sure that it had its own ecosystem living in it, but after clearing it out by filling red solo cups and dumping them out (like how you'd bail in a boat or raft), we eventually had no murky brown water left inside the jacuzzi, and had found no signs of life in the process, so I decided my hypothesis was in fact, wrong. Now that we had an empty old jacuzzi we were told by the Kailua crew, who had extremely thick Indian accents by the way, that the reason they never used it was because the mother was broken. That seemed like all it was to be honest, but oh.... oh boy.... things went downhill from there. Together, all who were to be involved in the process of moving the massive hot tub decided on a plan, which is shown below in image 1b.
Now then, in the aftermath of planning this event out, we all set forth immediately into action to get this thing moving. The first step was to cut the power wire connecting the hot tub itself to the actual power supply. From what I remember the potential danger was 200 volts, which was why the Kailua Crew told us the power was off before we began attempting to sever the cord. Minute after painful minute the rest of us sat in utter suspense as Bro. Stanger senior tried to use a Boy Scout pocket knife to Cut the Rope (reference intended). At this point allow me to introduce our squad. And by squad, I mean, well this:
After a grand total of 5 minutes, Senior Stanger decided the scouting knife was useless and instead bit the cord, which worked surprisingly quickly. After the first challenge had been conquered, the entire crew proceeded to push the stupid hot tub off of the ground onto its side, where it landed on top of the dolleys which were in turn, on top of the plywood. Señor Stanger then asked for two volunteers to move the plywood along with the jacuzzi as it made its grand journey from the back yard to the trailer. This was a very long process, and after about 30 minutes of moving a full size hot tub aboard the dolleys, we began to notice that the hot tub was falling apart. The dang thing was rotted almost completely through, and by the time it made its oversize way to the undersized trailer, there wasn't a single piece of exterior left on 3 of the 4 sides. All the rotted wood seemed to break off at random intervals, and the entire frame broke into pieces when we placed it on the trailer. All of this ended up taking 2½ hours. And that's just the first half of this story, because if you do a quick Google maps search on the distance between Kailua, Oahu and Kaneohe, Oahu you will discover that this thing, which could barely balance and practically had no structure left to speak of, had to then ride up and down the uneven and bumpy highway until arriving at the Stangers actual house. Unfortunately, RM Stanger drove a little too fast, and the result of this haste making was that pieces of this rotted pile of trash kept flying off onto the road, and the entire jacuzzi tilted to the point where it looked like it was going to fall off the tiny trailer! Miraculously, thanks in no small part to the Elder Hoke, Shawn, and myself all praying aloud the entire 30 minute drive that the crippled old pool would somehow survive its journey to its new home, we arrived while the hot tub still had at least one beam of frame left on it. You wouldn't believe how screwed up it looked, and honestly with the amount of fixing they were going to have to do, it clearly would have been cheaper and easier just to buy a new one, but I refrained from telling any of the Stangers that, because we were already 4 hours into this project and we would all sooner be damned for eternity than give up the fight when the hot tub was just 150 feet from its final goal. Unfortunately the next obstacle was the monumental toast of getting the rotted remains of this stupid jacuzzi through the gate that separated the front yard from the back yard, and the dolleys added enough height that the tub could no longer fit. Here's image 2C to explain what I mean.
What to do next stumped our little crew for a while, but after a short water break we returned to the rotting beast, determined to somehow, by might or by mind, we were going to get that apple-juicing hot tub to the backyard, and we would do it with or without the help of those dolleys. After somehow getting the dolleys out from under the thing, a process that took an entire hour on its own, we carefully moved the plywood to create a trail over the grass leading to our final destination, and proceeded to roll the hot tub. Yes, physically roll the freaking full size permanent hot tub on its sides until it landed on the only side it had left whose wall and frame were still in tact. From there, the idea became that all of us together would push the hot tub over the surface of the plywood until arriving in the backyard. Oh yes folks, it was time for the main event. Pushing a hot tub. This was going to be interesting.
Essentially, the next few hours were spent scraping the last remaining surface of the hot tub across one of the planks of the plywood. Whenever we got to the end, the plywood behind us moved from the back of us to the front, and the process of actually moving the plywood plank from behind to in front became increasingly difficult as the space between the Stanger's house and the fence that ended their property became more and more narrow. At this point the hot tub was completely broken. Anytime a spare part caught on something, be it house or fence, one of us would just pull the entire piece off and throw it aside so we could just get the darn thing moving again. And then, with barely a skeleton remaining to show for itself, the free hot tub crashed to the ground at exactly where sister Stanger wanted it. Now, you have to realize, at this point there was practically nothing left of this thing. It was inherently obvious to everybody there, especially to the men of the Stanger household, that this hot tub was beyond repair. It was long gone. And that was why they got it for free. I knew that the Kailua Clan had acted just a little too happy when we drove off. That day we had basically saved them from having to pay a bulk trash man to remove it. The Kailua Clan probably rejoiced that night. Us mature men, however, did not. We stood there beholding the most thoroughly trashed jacuzzi any of us had ever seen, and we silently applauded ourselves as the ones who had defeated that heaven forsaken hot tub. As the reality of the situation finally hit sister Stanger, her son looked at her and neither of them said anything. "You look disappointed mom" he said, almost playfully. We all busted up laughing, and as a massive, stinky, sweating mass, we made our way amongst the entire squad, except sister Stanger, and we group hugged. We had achieved victory over the dreaded hot tub. Today was the day we rose above ourselves, the day we beat the odds, the day we spent 7 hours moving a freaking hot tub from Kailua to Kaneohe, and at long last the journey had finally ended. It was at this point that Shawn, Elder Hoke and I made our way to a ramen shop for dinner, still dripping with sweat. As we parted ways with Shawn and his majestic white Tacoma which now smelled of pure man power and testosterone, Shawn left us with one final statement after thanking us for our efforts.
"You know guys, I'm no expert but I think they might have to replace more than just the motor before that hot tub runs again. Just a hunch though"
We spent basically our entire day doing this. And I feel great.
It's time I'm never getting back.
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