Remember the gross-out moment in “Caddyshack” when Chevy Chase’s character takes a bite out of a Baby Ruth candy bar floating in the pool? The kids and I had a similar experience recently only it wasn’t a candy bar.

I had promised to take the kids and a neighbor’s daughter to the pool after dinner. Since we’d had some very hot days, I was pleased to discover the water was no longer arctic.

At the break, we trudged out of the pool, my sons “walking” out on their hands and knees pretending to be sharks. We headed for our chairs, shivering in the breeze and bundled up in our towels. I really didn’t want to go another fifty minutes until the pool closed because the sun wasn’t giving off any heat and the brisk wind was cold on damp bathing suits. Be careful what you wish for.

“Why does he have gloves on?” my son asked.

Sure enough, three lifeguards were right where we’d just exited the pool minutes before and one of them was wearing rubber gloves and carrying a red plastic bag. He shook out the bag and I made out the letters “HAZ” from where we were sitting on the opposite side of the Lazy River.

“Someone pooed in the pool!  Someone pooed in the pool!” my son said.

“No they didn’t,” I shushed him.

"That’s why he’s wearing gloves!” he shouted. I was relieved the other three kids weren’t paying attention.

Sure enough, the lifeguard waded into the section of the pool my children and I had just walked through minutes before, bent over, picked something out of the water and put it inside the bag.

Now this red plastic bag seemed to be very long – maybe three or even four feet long – from where we were sitting. Unfortunately for the lifeguard trying to be discreet, it had only opened about a third of the way down. Whatever he’d put in the bag was stuck.

“It’s poo! It’s poo!” my son said, laughing. “Look, I can see the black line! Do you see it?”  Now all four children were straining to see. I had to stop the two boys from running over for a closer look.

Seconds later, an announcement was made that the pool was closing for the night due to an “accident” and would re-open the next morning.

I was partly relieved I would no longer be cold, and partly grossed out that we’d waded through water in which human waste had been floating. How long had it been there before someone spotted it?

You see little kids in pull-ups at the pool so you know there’s urine in the water but you block that out and think of the chemicals instead. It’s really hard to block out the idea of poo in the pool.

Poo in the pool, by the way, was the hot topic of conversation for quite awhile and was even the inspiration for spontaneous song during the drive home. “Pooing in the pool, pooing in the poo-oo-oo-oo-lllll!”  one of them sang. Soon all four were singing it at the top of their lungs. They thought the whole thing was hilarious.

I have two little boys. I’m used to jokes centering on bodily functions and soon I was smiling against my will at their little songs and rhymes, mostly because the sounds of their rib-busting laughter was infectious. I just hoped that was the only infectious thing that night. So far, so good.