Do you remember slip and slides when you were a kid? I used to always want one, but my family was poor. Even if we could have afforded the slip and slide the water to use such a thing would have sent us over the edge. Luck and creativity were on the side of me and my brother one spring day.
I was in the 6th grade at the time. If you know anything about Tennessee in the spring, you know it was raining. My brother and I were at one of my friends houses when we noticed that his yard was saturated with water. The light bulbs went off in our heads simultaneously. We rushed home as fast as we could, we had the forethought to not use even mildly good clothes for such an experiment, and changed our clothes. Rushed out of the house before anyone had known we were there and met our friend at his door. For the next hour or so, we were slipping and a sliding without a care in the world. When our friend had to go in, we headed home as proud as we could be.
Our mom was not that thrilled with our activities of the day. You see, my friends house had some grass but it was mostly dirt. In the rain that dirt turned to mud. By the very nature of slip and slide movements, said dirt was packed into our clothes. I explained to her that we were wearing old clothes and that we didn't mess up anything nice, but she said she didn't care what clothes we were wearing. She proceeded to tell us that we would not be coming in the house like that. We were told to strip naked out in the rain while our mom was spraying us with the hose. This was done in the front yard, in front of God and everybody else. While the end result was embarrassing and I am sure painful (I don't remember getting spanked, but knowing my mom. . .), I don't regret it for an instant. One of the best times I have had in my life.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Slip and Slide
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5 comments:
Ha ha ha! Your post gave me an idea... Strip and Slide! Your favorite childhood pastime... but for adults! :)I loved the ol' Slip-n-Slide. We made one out of a sheet of clear plastic and a couple garden hoses once. Got in a boatload of trouble for killing the hell out of the grass, but, like you said, well worth the punishment.Great post.
The ideal of a slip-and-slide was always better than the reality. I recall too many times where I received some minor injury from using one of my friend's slip-and-slides. Too little water? Ouch, plastic-burns. Start you slide from too high off the ground? Be prepared to get the wind knocked out of you, as well as the indignity of landing like a dead fish on the plastic sheet and not sliding forward at all. And of course, there was the dreaded "let's set this up on a grassy slope...but wait, don't slide off one side or the other because there's probably some small rocks mixed in to the grass that you're going to scrape across when you leave that sanctioned yellow pathway.I do recall one time in high school someone broke out a slip-and-slide and decided it would be more fun if they added some dish soap to the slide surface. There were two drawbacks to this: 1. The soap made things very slick, granted, but it also got all over you when you slid down it. You ended up having to hose off the soap before you could dry off with a towel, or else you'd end up looking like you streaked too much SPF-80 sunscreen on you with a whisk-broom. 2. The slip-and-slide was set up on bare dirt. This turned to mud shortly after we started. Mud and soap are arch-enemies. Especially when both get in your eyes, where they have a battle-royale cage match with your eyeballs playing the part of the cage.Still, a slip-and-slide, complete with insults and injuries, should be a required portion of everyone's childhood. I know my daughter will be getting one as a gift in a couple years, and I'm getting the video camera and a stack of band-aids ready.
i never had a slip n slide... it always looked like fun on the tv commercials, though...
great story, budd. my brother and i always wanted a slip 'n slide but wound up with a wet banana. they were pretty much the same, and i definitely got scraped a few times landing in dirt. oh, and sliding over the pebbles and rocks we forgot to clear from under the plastic...thinking about it makes my stomach hurt. fun times, though. definitely brings a smile to my face.
Kirk-I think they have those at frat parties. They use baby oil. ouch, that carpet is going to hurt!
Ross and Angela-remember the slip in slide with the ramp and pool. Now that was the bomb.
Grrrace- Get one for Mia and have fun. although as an adult, fun kid stuff seems to be painful. See It's official, I am old.
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