On the serious side, hot tubbing comes with a few risks you’ll want to avoid. On the less-serious side, some people’s hot tub experiences are hilarious. We’ve asked our family and friends, they’ve asked theirs, and between us we’ve found these. We hope they give you a giggle.
“You know those Japanese snow monkeys?…”
One of our friends put a hot tub in their back garden. Weirdly, they had it installed in December and a week later the temperatures plummeted to record lows. The hot tub party they’d planned was out of the question but they were so disappointed that a couple of us decided to give it a go anyway.
The hot tub parasol they’d ordered was delayed by the weather. As we turned up it started snowing again but the four of us grinned, bore it, took our outer layers off and went for it. The twenty foot walk from the back door to the tub was agonising, bent double against the cold as the snow blew horizontally in the gale. Because the hot tub step delivery had also been delayed we had to scramble up the icy, slippery wall in our swimming gear.
By the time we got in we were pale blue dotted with red raw patches. We warmed up beautifully though, and we’ve laughed ourselves silly for months over the photos: four pale blue people sitting shoulder-deep in water, surrounded by steam, in a howling wind, with snow-covered hair and scarlet noses. Exactly like a family of Japanese snow monkeys.
OMG how do we stop the bubbles!
We decided to stay at a smart hotel in Brighton for my 40th birthday. Our luxurious bathroom had a hot tub, something neither of us had ever used before, and we were really excited to try it.
I had some posh bubble bath with me but my husband said he’d once had an incident with some bubble bath and a laundrette washing machine that he did not want to repeat, advising me against using it in the tub.
I thought what the heck, let’s give it a go. I poured a generous amount of it into the hot tub while he was getting undressed. It bubbled up dramatically, like a pure white scented lava flow, and it kept on coming. Within thirty seconds it had forced me out of the bathroom into the bedroom, bulging out of the bathroom door in a billowing cloud. We were hopping around in the bubbles screaming, we didn’t know what to do, we thought we’d suffocate.
My husband fought his way valiantly through the bubbles, arriving in the bathroom just as they’d reached the room door. He turned the hot tub off and pulled the plug just in time, stopping the flow before it escaped into the corridor. It took us ages to get the room back in order and clear the foam up, made worse because we just couldn’t stop laughing.
Hot tub sausage horror
I’m actually embarrassed to admit this, but I mistook a poo my toddler had quietly done in the hot tub for a stray barbecued mini-sausage. I am endlessly thankful that I discovered my mistake before taking a bite.
Jaws
We know we should never drink too much in a hot tub, but at the time we were young and foolish! Back then we’d get together to watch vintage movies at each other’s houses along with a few beers. This particular mate’s parents had a hot tub in the garden. We’d just watched Jaws, and we’d been laughing at how rubbish the 1970s special effects were. One of the lads wasn’t looking too good, though. He said it was a lot worse than he expected. Even though his brain knew the special effects weren’t very special, they still scared him silly.
We had a few more drinks then headed for the hot tub. A few minutes later he let out an enormous scream, shot out of the tub like a bullet and landed hard on the ground, breaking a wrist. It wasn’t a shark in the water, as it turned out. It was a twig. Poor lad, he’s never lived it down. His nickname is still Jaws.
The hot tub we never got to use
We’d blown up our new inflatable hot tub, filled it, heated it, and we were about to use it for the first time. Our teenagers chose that exact moment to get into a fight and when one of them fell against the tub they somehow managed to make a hole in it. The hole expanded and the whole thing imploded. The kids were yelling, we were yelling, the neighbours were goggling at us over the fence, and the tidal wave of hot water swept our Chihuahua right down the back passage before spiting him out under the hedge in the front garden.
We lied
We like to do pranks. We told our friends we’d heated the hot tub and they could jump right in. We lied. They are not friends with us any more ;(
Bad bath tub hot tub
We couldn’t afford a hot tub at the time. I thought I’d look online for DIY inspiration. I should know better at my age. I know I’m no detail monkey. I flit around, I get bored fast, I rarely look at the instructions. I’m, like, let’s just see what happens.
Not a good move. The old bath tub I found was a great shape with claw feet, cheap because it had a few rusty spots about a third of the way along the bottom. I thought I could live with that, so I painted them over with a coat of enamel paint. Out of sight out of mind, that’s me.
I balanced the bath on four chunks of tree trunk, two either end, and filled it with the garden hose. Then I built a fire underneath. If it worked I was planning to find or make a DIY bubble blower to go in the tub. For the moment, I was in test mode.
Need I say more? The rusty spots on an old enamel bath get spectacularly hot when licked by flames from a roaring fire, and that’s why I have three 10p-size scars on my backside.
Dog tub
Everyone brought their dogs to our place as usual. We wanted to keep them away from the food so we put them in the garden while we prepared it. By the time we got back outside with our trays of goodies there were seven big dogs sitting quietly in the hot tub with big daft smiles on their faces. They hadn’t made a sound. We’d had no clue they’d got in the tub, they were really sneaky about it, and the water was all hairy.
BIG hot tub fun awaits you
Sample our fabulous hot tub collection to make your garden lifestyle even more fun. We just hope you don’t join our list of hot tub funnies!
