It wasn't my fault, Your Honor!

Can I sue the city for not losing weight?

As the temperature is dropping, I'm both eagerly and anxiously awaiting the final things that have to be done to get the spa and heater for the pool working. The first thing that had to happen was the completion of the pool and installation of all equipment. Check. Next, we had to have the fence installed. Check. Next, the city has to come out to do a final inspection, and once that's done, I have to call Entergy to have them upgrade our gas meter so that the heater has enough juice to do it's job. Back up - I missed a "check".

Well, yesterday and today, I have been hoping to come home and see that pink inspection paper from DPW. (I know it's gonna be pink because they've already done two inspections on pool location and pool rough in, and they were pink, and I'm just sharp that way.) Nothing yesterday, but as I pull into the driveway today (on T.S., because it's been nice and cool - but I think I mentioned that already), I see the pink form folded into the door handle. Hooray!!! I grabbed it and skipped merrily to the back to tell Ray. I'm not sure exactly what I said, but I teased him about us failing the inspection - ha, ha, ha.

Later, as I was about to go mow, the yard, I decided to actually read the thing, and the joke is on me, because it was marked, "REJECTED & RESCHEDULE". (Imagine the air being sucked out of an old worn out balloon here.)

According to the sheet, the gates must be self closing - which I find interesting because both of my neighbors have had their inspections, and neither has self closing gates. In fact, one neighbor has the IDENTICAL fence/gate set up that we do - we used the same company! I called the fence guy, and he told me that he'd never had a problem, but that the steel framed gates on our fence can't easily be made to be self closing, and to do some sort of work around would add a lot to the price. Great. He also told me that, a few months ago, he was actually doing the final work on the neighbor's fence when the inspector came by, and the guy saw that there were locks on the gates, and was ok with the inspection. Does that seem arbitary and capricious (that's for you, Beth) to you that mine won't get approved, but the neighbor's was approved while the fence guy WAS STILL WORKING ON IT???

OK, so I went to the DPW website a minute ago, and there is a section on swimming pool fences, and it does say that all gates must be self closing and self latching (and some other stuff). Then it says that other protective devices may be used as long as they provide at least the same protection as the device you substitute for.

Let's hope that a padlock is a sufficient substitute for a self closing/latching gate. If not, it will be way too cold to swim much longer this year, and I won't be able to use the pool for its intended purpose - swim laps and lose weight (forget about the fact that I ate lunch at the Little Village yesterday and Serop's today - that's beside the point). Anyway, if they don't accept my substitute, I guess I'll be suing for the bodily harm they are causing me! I think I have a shot at winning, too. (I just hope they pick a lot of large (Christians) people for the jury!