For many, a day at the swimming pool can be a total blast. Whether it’s nostalgic memories of playing pool games with friends or current ones filled with laughs and splashes, pool days can be pretty great.
The smell of chlorine can be especially sentimental, as it’s a sensory reminder for many of a day at the pool. Unfortunately, a former NASA and Apple engineer conducted an experiment with chlorine-containing water that revealed something that may very well ruin swimming pools for us all.
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Mark Rober decided to conduct a “terrifying” experiment with pool water
Mark Rober, known for his experience as an engineer and YouTuber, decided to test a haunting theory about the smell of chlorine in swimming pools versus chlorine-containing water not in a swimming pool.
He called it “the most terrifying experiment” he’d ever conducted.
He used two buckets for his test
Rober grabbed two buckets, one labeled “A” and the other labeled “B.” He filled them both with water and four times the recommended concentration of chlorine for the size of both buckets.
Yet, for bucket “B” only, he added a special ingredient.
Bucket “B” had a little pee
If you didn’t guess it already, here we go. Rober added a drop of human urine to bucket “B” only, to see which bucket smelled more like a swimming pool.
The running theory he wanted to test was if swimming pools get their unique smell, not just from chlorine, but from the combination of chlorine, urine and sweat. He let both buckets sit for 24 hours.
Bucket “A” had a surprising smell
Despite using a lot of chlorine, to Rober’s surprise, bucket “A” didn’t smell like anything. It didn’t have that familiar swimming pool smell that he and so many people are accustomed to.
“It just smelled like water,” he said.
Bucket “B” was even more shocking
When Rober turned to smell bucket “B,” he was greeted by an unpleasant shock.
“That is crazy. This smells like a pool,” he said, reminding viewers that the only difference between the two buckets of chlorine-containing water is a drop of pee.
This is the point in which swimming pools were ruined for some people not thrilled about swimming in pee.
Most people wished they didn’t know about the pee
There were quite a few people that instantly wished that they didn’t know the gross truth about swimming pools after Rober’s video got over 780,000 views.
“How can I unlearn this?” juanpa_ho commented, gaining over 94,00 likes from others cringing over this finding.
A few people found the truth funny
There were some that somehow found the humor in this nauseating news and took it as a sign of some successful immune systems.
Another person wrote, “Without a little pee it’d just be an “ool.”
Rober acknowledges that he may have ruined some fond memories
In his Instagram video, Rober reflects on the fact that thoughts of pee may now define all of people’s special swimming pool memories.
Whether it was playfully splashing our friends or doing swim races across the pool (not to mention just realizing that you swallowed a bunch of pool water!), the pool was a paradise for many.
Apparently, people really pee in pools
Now that we know the truth, it stands to reason that we may wonder who these peeing perpetrators are and how to stop them.
While we hope that, at worst, it’s just kids who need a lesson in etiquette and sanitation, we fear adults could be guilty, too.
Ultimately, it’s hard to say who’s doing the swimming pool peeing, but next time many of us go to the pool, we may be a little more suspicious of our fellow swimmers.
