One of my favorite moments of the week is trying to come up with some type of material that will satisfy the criteria in Mama Katt's weekly Writer's Workshop. Today's prompts were:
1.) If I sent you four hundred dollars today what is ONE thing you would spend it on and why. ps I want my change.
2.) What are your kids talking about?
3.) Tell us about a local news story that's all the buzz right now in your neck of the woods. 4.) Share some blogging advice.
5.) Tell us about that time at the playground when that thing happened. (thanks to Heather at Chasing Butterfly's who unknowingly inspired this last prompt)
I decided on the last one.
The playground is where lives were built.
Some would say the fountain of education is in the books in the class and wisdom in the teacher's mind that flows forth. Of course, they are wrong. The real education of a person begins on the first random playground in elementary. How many times were made up civilizations saved because of the crafty kids? How many football championships were won in spite of the random girl's picking daisies on mid field? How many questions of honor were settled with wedgies, name calling, or a good ol' fashioned punch to the mouth? How many love affairs or hints of love blossomed beside the slides?
The playground is where we learned to live in a society. It's where I learned that monkey bars were to climb not to walk on.
It seems like that should probably be one of those logical things that just humans know. 'Walking on monkey bars can be dangerous." Kind of like going the wrong way up a slide is not as fun as it looks.
Yet, there I was walking up and over a slightly oval like monkey bar set. I wish I could say I was showing off for the girls, but I still wasn't entranced by their 'differences'. I wish I could say that I was winning a bet or some one double dog dared me. But, I can't. I was bored, so I wanted to do something I hadn't done. So, since the bars were there, I decided to scale them.
I made it, walking over those curved bars, four and three fourths times. One misstep took this leisure time activity and made it emergency room worthy..
After I stopped screaming and flopping around like a fish out of water, the nurse looked at the source of my pain. My arm was on fire with hurt. So, my family came and got me and took me to the hospital...again. (Someday I will tell you of my first broken arm, that one's a good one.)
The diagnosis was I had fractured my arm...for the third time. My doctor said that if I got only one more broken arm I would get a toaster. It's still not funny even today. But,on the plus side, most of little league was out for me in the summer. (No worries, I sucked.) Definitely, I was not going to participate in Swim Team. (Cool, I sucked in the water even worse than on land)
Nope, it was air conditioning and boredom for six more weeks. The thing I had tried to fight by doing the dumb thing to begin with, boredom, now would be my constant companion for six more weeks.
Never underestimate the lessons of the playground.
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15 comments:
Aww. You poor hellion. And for the record I liked the toaster joke.
So, did that teach you to buck society's 'should-have-known-better' lessons or are you still wandering about with the occasional broken bone? ;o)
The real question os if the first three passes and the feelings engendered made up for the pain at the end of the "last" pass?
You get a toaster! That's good but I really liked the line about getting a wedgie. Geez, that brings back memories. Being a kid was the greatest. I wish adult life had monkey bars to climb.
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It's always the monkey bars. Seriously, I can't believe our kids are still allowed to play on them. LOL
I remember SO many kids with broken bones in grade school! It was constant! But, three times...come on..be careful!
What a horrible lesson to have learned!!! I felt like I was right there with you ... and I was scared! And my son swears it is more fun to go up the wrong way on the slide than down the right way...
Poor thing! I didnt break any bones until I was 26 and I broke my pinkie toe, it still hurt though! So I take it tennis was by default since baseball or swimming wasnt an option?
Seriously, there is so much wisdom to be gleaned from recess times of yore. Not the least of which is that when you misbehave in life you have to stand on a line or against a wall for some inane amount of time and merely observe while others participate in life. I have yet to see a boss bust out that form of discipline.
I don't know... I thought the toaster line was sort of funny.
I did something similar on those curved monkey bars... didn't break anything but it hurt like hell.
I like what you said about how much we learn on the playground. I did a post recently about how we're hurting our kids by not letting them play the we did when we were young... there's too much supervision and too much problem-solving by the adults going on... it's worrisome.
Great story, btw!
Those monkey bars are dangerous! My sister broker her arm on a set. But I think she was trying to do a Cherry Bomb. Remember? That thing where you swing from your knees and try to swing high enough so when you let go, you land on your feet without using your hands?
But did you get a cool cast to wear for all the kids to sign? No broken bones for me on the monkey bars. Just a lesson. Always wear shorts underneath my dresses:)
And did you go for the toaster, or no?
Imagine if you had a blog back then? That would have rocked.
My nephew broke his arm on the monkey bars not long ago... he was going across them like you are supposed to and STILL broke his arm when he fell. Just not safe I tell ya!
I did something kind of like that too! I didn't break my arm but I had to get stitches right under my nose to my top lip and on my chin! Oh the lessons of the playground! come join in on Friday High Five!
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