Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for October 12, 2012
October 11, 2012
October 13, 2012
Transcript:
Alice: Dill, want to climb on the big jungle gym? Dill: Alice! Are you joking? Dill: I've heard of kids getting lost in that thing for years at a time! Dill: Then one day emerging un-enexpectedly from a tube slide, their bodies stooped with age, their gray beards brushing the ground. Alice: Is that a yes or a no?
1.. Notice that Dill is barefooted; Alice isn’t.2. I’m going to repeat a story I told about a tall jungle gym awhile back (had to be on this site). When my grandson, K, (who turned out to be an Aspie) was four, I took him to a Burger King with a three-story jungle gym. (BK, McD’s and them don’t seem to have play areas any more – lean times? Lawsuits? Aging of baby boomers?) He quick scampered to the third level, where there was, like, a ship’s wheel. By and by I heard a commotion up there – K had a death grip on the wheel and was hazy on the concept of taking turns. I saw an older boy twirl his finger beside his head – he noticed. Bawling and screeching for K to come down had no effect. So I hauled my sixty-six-year-old carcass up the tube to the third level (big-time grime and urine odor), and dragged K back down, inch by inch, with him kicking and screaming. Later, over a burger, he apologized for his behavior. It was a while, however, before I took him to another jungle gym.