On the Playground

I had PBS on this morning for the little dudes, and the Cat in the Hat was talking about teeter-totters. This brought terrifying recollections of late 80s-early 90s playgrounds to mind. Do you remember the death traps we were sent to play on? Let's talk about this for a moment.

The teeter-totter. This was perhaps the most frightening piece of playground equipment for me. The level of fear it evoked depended upon my teeter-totter partner. Seesawing could be an absolute blast if, say, I was playing with my best pal, Eller. I could laugh and fly through the air without anxiety. However, change my partner to my cousin John, and the fun was replaced by terror. I knew that at any moment (while I was in the air), he could and would (and did) jump out of his seat on the opposite  side of the teeter-totter leaving me to plummet to my doom! Oh, I can still feel the pain that shot through my 50 lbs body. The jar to the earth made my teeth chatter and my body convulse. Thank God my hands were in the clear. You could lose a finger in an instant!

The Merry-Go-Round. Also known as the Scary-Go-Round. I can never remember not being afraid of this contraption. When I was a kid, someone told me (probably one of my cousins or some idiot classmate) that some kid got her foot chopped off by the Merry-Go-Round. True or not, the very thought of sitting on that thing and getting slung around by the likes of Edward Dale Brewer (The Pig from Hell) and having my foot severed was enough to keep me off of that thing for life! You go ahead and spend your recess trapped on the wheel of death (cause once it starts spinning, your ass is trapped there until the bell rings), holding onto the bars with dear life. I'll be over by the swings.

And who could forget the ole tire...tire...tire bridge? I don't even know what you would call it. Basically, there were about 12 tires chained together that you could climb, jump, walk across. Or, you could attempt to do those things and have one of your legs go down the center of the tire while the other one flailed about helplessly and you lay astraddle the so-called-bridge. Not that that ever happened to me.

Last but not least: the skin-scorching metal slide! Now, I ain't one to complain too much about a slide. After all, they are pretty spectacular. But, you climb up on that sucker in July with your little short shorts on, and you might as well say goodbye to your epidermis. That top layer of skin is toast. Literally. Picture little Allison running full-speed ahead to the playground. Yes! No line for the slide! Ascending the steps, the anticipation was brutal. Crawl on top of the slide, stick my legs out in front of me, and scream bloody murder all the way to the bottom. Get off that frying pan and check out my beet red chicken legs. "No line for the slide." What a fool I was!