07/27/2008 "Bye Bye Fountain" It was another "addon" that the previous sellers left behind for our benefit...an ugly stone fountain in the middle of our little backyard. Don't get me wrong, I love fountains, but the one they chose was not only ugly but it came with a giant foot-long koi fish they nicknamed "Jaws" I didn't understand why they did...until recently. Apparently Jaws (quite appropriately named) ate all the other smaller koi fish in the pond. No biggie right? But then he ate the sucker fish that cleaned after him (I'm quite positive he ate him, the raccoons wouldn't be able to find him since he sticks to the black rocky bottom). So since he ate the one fish that cleaned up after him, the water became a cesspool of his waste and he not only slowly plugged up the fountain pump in quick order but the algae in the water turned into this gruesome swamp thing. So Jaws was slowly dying literally swimming in his own shit. He was always to his side in a corner, not eating the fish food we dropped into it. No pet store would take him and Scott's parents definitely didn't want the cannibalistic fish. He wasn't completely dead when Scott tried to take him out of the fountain on Friday (he put up quite a fight, Scott had to wrestle him to get into a bucket for 20 minutes) but Scott felt bitter enough to throw him into the small stream further behind our backyard and let nature run it's course. So byebye to Jaws. Now comes the fountain! Scott's mom and dad said they definitely wanted it and the monstrocity was welcome to it. It looked like fake rock so I assumed after it was empty that it would be easy to carry out. On Saturday, Scott and I went to Water World with a bunch of friends while Scott's dad and Alan (Scott's brother in law) tried to lug out the fountain to Alan's pickup truck...AND Alan threw out his back attempting to tip it over (he's only 23!). Apparently looks can be deceiving and even though it LOOKED like fake rock, it actually was full of cement. A good half ton of cement (no emphasation). So today we called my cousin Joseph to help, and we wanted to take another go at loading the fountain up. Poor Alan was out of commission. So it was me, Scott, Joseph, and Scott's dad grunting and huffing trying to get the fountain out of the backyard into Alan's truck. After a good hour, we finally loaded it onto the truck that was pulled up next to the gate. Ah, drama doesn't end there though. Laura (Scott's sister who drove the truck) couldn't start the old truck after the fountain was loaded because the ignition and steering wheel locked. So it took ANOTHER hour of toying with the truck to get it to work. FUN!! So we drive the truck over to Scott's parent's home and here comes the fun part...Scott's mom apparently wanted the fountain on the FRONT PORCH of the house and not the backyard. They don't have a grass lawn in front of the house, it is a bunch of bushes, trees and rocks. The only way we would be able to get the fountain to the front porch was to haul it up 7 steps on the walkway (Scott's parents have a huge house, fyi). After another good hour of grunting and pushing up the half ton fountain up the steps, we were able to pivot/drag the fountain into the space that Scott's mom wanted us to put it. I'd like to say I have gotten a healthy respect for the men's strength. Laura couldn't help because she was dressed to go to a party and the most I could do is help push. So thank you again, old people, for leaving behind another piece of crap that we almost broke our backs trying to get rid of. I swear if there's any justice in the world, I hope they suffer just as much as we did with their new house!! I will post pictures of the damned fountain along with our now very open backyard. I am already planning to pull out the dying rosebushes and random plants they planted to possibly as Alan to build a pit barbeque. That would be so sweet!!!