Aside from the fact that Costa Rica will cooperate with the United States Revunooers to make sure we citizens-but-living-elsewhere people pay our taxes and don’t hide our vast assets (aka vas-ass) here in Costa Rica, there is another reason Costa Rica isn’t a tax haven – at least for me.

I pay stupid tax on a regular basis.

The latest stupid tax is what I will be paying to replace the pool tiles that are falling off the side of the pool.

Ya see, I close the pool up during rainy season. First year, I didn’t attempt to keep pool chemistry in balance and the pool turned the prettiest shade of emerald green. That meant a lot of time cleaning and wasting water to get it swimmmmmable. Last year, I decided I would just over-chlorinate the pool to keep it sparkly.

Which worked great – took the cover off and the pool was sparkly. Except, wait, what are those blue squares on the bottom? Oh, lost a few tiles. Pura vida.

Neighbor kids came up and wanted to swim and jumped in. First reaction was from Nazareth who came up sputtering “cloro… cloro…”

But she lived and continued to breath, so they continued to swim.

Eventually I got in – and right back out, pronto. “cloro…cloro…” was right! wooo-boy was it strong. I tested it and instead of a pale-ale yellow, I got lemony-fresh yellow.

And the bottom of the pool now was littered with many many small blue squares.

Apparently the chlorine I add to the pool to make a safe swimming environment can eat away the glop used to make the tiles stick to the concrete.

Oh yeah, and over chlorinated pool can kill ya too. AND make you ugly.

Chlorine absorbs into your skin. Too much exposure to chlorine has been linked to major health problems including reproductive disorders and even birth defects.  It can cause your skin and hair to dry out and over time too much exposure can even cause wrinkles.

So I will pay stupid tax to Sebastien to strip off the rest of the tiles, replace them, and waste the water will all the glop debris.