Playgrounds

Playgrounds have many wonderful associations for me. It was the place were we hung upside-down from the monkey bars, never for longer than five minutes, because we had heard that if you were upside-down for longer, your brain would explode. You can't use the zipwire with an exploded brain. There were the many delights, like the slides, zipwires, swings, and four square. Our blacktop had a map of the United States, so we created an elaborate form of four square using the West Coast and part of the Midwest (we couldn't play on the East Coast because first off, the states aren't square, second, the state lines look like they were drawn by someone with piss poor motor skills, and third, almost everyone would have been screwed, since the ball was larger than Rhode Island). We tried to swing all the way over the bar, pumping our legs and leaping off when we got bored. One girl got perpendicular with the ground on her attempt, but she fell from the swing (the bar on our swings was a good five feet higher than the average swing) and broke her leg.

The playground was where I first saw someone flip his eyelids backwards, revealing pinkish skin and eye slime underneath. Also, I got into my one and only fight there, with a third grade boy (I was in second grade). We got into a scuffle on the mulch because I was taunting him, and I took him down. We wrestled for a bit before I got to my feet. He rose and yanked on my St. Francis necklace. The chain snapped and the necklace flew from my neck, to be immediately lost in the mulch. Opportunately, a teacher walked by exactly as he came at me. I, being a manipulative girl, burst into tears and started blubbering about how my father had given me the necklace and I was really attached to it because I loved my daddy and PUNISH THAT RAT. I could see from the look on the boy's face that he knew the tables had taken an unexpected, underhanded turn. He got the ear-wrench, and was dragged back inside for the remainder of recess while another teacher helped me look for the necklace.

I felt guilty, but it was a moment of great enlightenment. I suddenly realized my immense power as a girl, and swore from then on to only use it for good. With great power comes great responsibility, after all.

Sometimes I forget this thing that I swore, however. Therefore, we should make adult-sized playgrounds. Not only because playgrounds are awesome, but to remind us. There is a special feeling on playgrounds, that you don't have to make any more important decision than which slide to go down first. There is little thought involved, unlike the rest of life beyond childhood, and it is the kind of simple fun that we forget. It would be much more convenient and garner less strange looks, however, if me and my friends could enjoy playgrounds that are meant for people our size (this is particularly a problem in the McDonald's complexes). Also, the tiny playgrounds are cursed inconvenient when you want to get some serious playing in. Playgrounds for adults and teenagers, so that we might embrace the simple and awesome things in life!

In regards to playgrounds and exercise: I periodically attempt to do the things I did when I was eight when I come across open playgrounds, and have discovered that comparatively speaking, I am a cripple. I blame puberty. I have come to understand that playgrounds are excellent exercise. Running through the complex, ascending and descending complexes, trying to stay balanced when someone bounces on the shaky bridge, both excellent. It's still just as fun as you remember.

Playgrounds: because running on the treadmill sucks.