Derek asked what was on that receipt. It was a chemical delivery receipt, like I said, required by state law. It was also the final safety certification, the document a licensed service tech files to certify a pool is safe and complete. And because they refused to pay and refused to let me finish the last step, I could not, in good conscience or by law, file that certification as complete.
Twenty-two years in this business and I have never once falsely certified a pool. I was not about to start to help the man my ex-wife left me for.
When the county received an uncertified pool about to host a hundred guests, including people from the hospital board, an inspector did what inspectors do. He came out and red-tagged it. Not because of anything I did to the water, which was crystal clear. Because the law does not let you open an uncertified commercial-scale pool to a crowd, and theirs was uncertified because they would not pay for the work to be finished and signed off.
Derek tore my invoice in half and dropped it in the pool and called it a favor since I was family, sort of. The county does not accept sort of as a certification.
There was exactly one way to get the red tag lifted in time for their party. Pay the balance, let me complete and certify the work. Derek paid the three thousand six hundred forty dollars before noon on the Fourth of July, and I certified a job that had always been done right, and the party went ahead.
And my boys spent the Fourth with me anyway, because you cannot actually hold a mans children hostage over pool chlorine. The courts do not work that way, whatever Melissa threatened from behind her mimosa.
I drive a beat-up Ford Ranger and I haul a ton of chlorine and I clean other peoples pools, the way Melissa told our son. I also know pool law cold, because it is my trade, and my trade paid me in full and gave me my Fourth of July with my boys. Crystal clear, you might say.