Coping gracefully

It may not look like much to you, but to me: The pool no longer has 3 feet of nasty water, the construction debris is gone and, most important, the gray concrete coping around the edge has been poured.

Our pool guy, Chris, and his crew have been here the last few days, getting the job done.

First they cleaned it out, and then they slogged the mix for the coping, bucket by bucket by hand, down the edge of the house to pour into the forms they'd set. Lovely job.

But then there was our carpenter Dave's analysis, when he discovered what he'd have to shovel out of our tiny front yard after our new dumpster was delivered.

Chris's guys had dumped all the pool gradoo behind our front fence. Dave was shoveling it all into the dumpster Friday, muttering oaths in Gaelic I think. I asked him if he wanted me to call Chris to have him ask his own guys to remove the mess they'd created.

"Oh, Lord, no," Dave said.

Should I call Chris just to complain?

"Nah, I'll give him the what-for when I see him, but I'll do it so he doesn't chew out the guys workin' for him. I'm just workin' off steam." An elegant man.