Today we were those people.

You know the ones.

The people who have pool noodle battles in the middle of the Costco parking lot.

Our last summer pool noodles, the cheap Home Depot ones, had long ago gone the way of a phoenix bird from the Harry Potter books.  But instead of loosing all its feathers and making gagging noises before it bursts into flame and majestically rises from its own ashes, reborn, our pool noodles slowly and methodically shed clumps of polyethylene foam in pool-filter-clogging sizes and wheezed, before rising from the pool deck to rain down sun-faded bits of probably cancer causing material across our backyard.

This year we sprang for the larger, squishier, slightly odiferous Costco pool noodles (the label promised that the chemically odor would fade after a couple hours out in the sun).  I let the pool noodles ride shot gun on the way home, although we did crack the windows.  After lunch, the boys went swimming.  The pool noodles were enjoyed and the odor did indeed fade.

Let us hope that these pool noodles, when their time comes, simply fade away and allow themselves to be unceremoniously thrown away.