Prepper

Chapter Seven

Four hours of sleep. Four straight hours! Bliss. I haven't felt this good in weeks. But it's approaching midday and Heath is looking to be entertained. He stands at the bedside jumping up and down, chirping some unintelligible nonsense. I haul him up into the bed and tickle him breathless.

"Splash pad, splash pad, splash pad!" He starts chanting when he catches his breath. I stretch and rub my eyes.

"Okay buddy, get your stuff." I let the dog out and fire up the Keurig. Kate, in a moment of weakness, bought those little, powdered donuts last time she hit the grocery store. Must have cost a small fortune. I down three of the decadent little suckers before the coffee is even done. Sugar and caffeine will shortly course through my body and put a little jump in my step.

"Ready daddy, ready? Let's go! Let's go!" Heath is all fired up. His spray shirt is on backwards and he's put his sandals on the wrong feet, again. I sort him out in between sips of coffee.

"Daddy's just going to finish his coffee and throw the ball around with Merida for a few minutes."

"Awww." Comes the de facto complaint.

"She's going to be stuck in the crate for a couple hours, buddy. She needs a little attention too." Heath frowns and heads to the great room to find his favourite tv show. I head out the back door.

It's a sticky, humid day already. Looks like quite a temperature change from earlier this morning. Merida drops the ball at my feet and stares up expectantly. I wheel the ball into the neighbours yard, narrowly missing a recently planted sapling. I cringe. It wouldn't be the first tree Merida and I have decimated. This fetch thing seems to result in a fair bit of collateral damage.

After a dozen throws the dog is panting hard in the heat, and Heath is rapping at the window beckoning me inside. I give one last toss into the pool, Merida leaps after it swims in a few circles before locating the object of her affections and fetches it smartly back up to the deck. She gives a couple good shakes and I dry her as best I can with an old towel. Kate will love the wet dog smell later.

Back inside, I crate Merida all the while Heath pesters me about the TV. He goes on and on about his channel not working. I investigate and he's absolutely correct - just a blue screen. I switch channels, the next channel is the same, as is the next and the next.

"Maybe the cable is out." I say.

"Why?"

"Dunno." I grab my laptop, sure enough, no Internet either. I grab my phone, four bars and Google comes right up. "Yeah, looks like the cable is out. It should be back later. Let's hit the splash pad, it's getting really hot out and mommy won't like it if I have you out in the Sun too long.

I load a few items and a haphazardly thrown together picnic lunch into Heath's Radio Flyer, he opts to pull it as we walk down the block. Three houses down from ours, he gives up and climbs in the wagon, I get to play beast of burden for the remainder of the trip.

Twenty minutes later we make it to the splash pad and I'm sweating bullets. Good God it's hot! There is a smattering of children and a few parents milling about the park, but no one is on the splash pad. I don't think I have ever seen it empty on a hot day. I get a little closer and find out why that is, the gate has a large, official-looking public safety notice.

DUE TO TOXIC ALGAE BLOOM, WATER IS UNSAFE. SPLASH PAD CLOSED

"Goddammit." I mutter under my breath. I pull my phone out and Google Lake Erie algae bloom. Sure enough, numerous hits. The whole western basin is a toxic soup and it seems to be affecting many communities and cities along the lake. The stories seem to indicate farm run-off, high phosphorous and nitrogen as part of the problem. It's also causing low oxygen in the water, so there is a large fish die-off and seagulls are also being sickened. Basically this end of the lake is a giant death-zone - lovely.