Looking out my Backdoor: A pig in a poke

We didn’t exactly buy it sight unseen. Well, I suppose I did. My half. Unseen.

Last winter, Jim, a neighbor here on the rancho, and I began hankering (that word generally precedes a pig in a poke) after a hot tub for pain therapy. We agreed that if we found what we wanted, we’d share the cost, share the use.

We made two dread trips into Guadalajara only to find them outrageously expensive. Searches on such sites as craigslist: Mexico, for a second-hand tub yielded no results.

Jim returned to Missouri in March. “I’ll look around here. If I find one and we agree, I’ll buy it and bring it down in...