Children and Dirty Blankets

Oaks Park update. Today was the first day I was slightly upset I had to work, because today was BEAUTIFUL! I really wanted to go to the park with Renee, or run around by the waterfront. But, instead, I had to work. Which was still great, I mean, I love working at Oaks Park. Just a little less today.

So today Lillian (one of the foreman, or forewoman, I should say) went through the list of who was on what rides, and I didn't hear my name called. I went up to her and asked what ride I was on. She replied with, "I don't know, who are you?" Let me let you in on a little secret, Lillian is kind of always grumpy and gives off a vibe that she really would be ok if everyone died and it was just her left on earth, that way no one would bother her. It's ok though, I didn't mind because she's like that to everyone. I told her my name and she said, "You're on the Big Pink."

The Big Pink is a slide. A very long slide. A regular sized slide wouldn't really belong in an amusement park, now would it? Iit's a slide that is very long and you have to take a old, dirty piece of cloth all the way up all the stairs to the top of the slide, and then you sit on the cloth and slide down. Anyone can ride this ride, any size or age. It's really just a long slide. There's not much more to it. Except a few things.

FIRST: The pieces of cloth are dirty and gray and gross. It's my job to be at the top of the slide and help people get on. I have to grab every single piece of gross blanket and lay it on the slide, then help the people get on. There are three slots that people can sit in between, so 3 people can go down the slide at once. By the end of the day, my hands were very dirty, and my fingernails were horrid to look at. Ick.

SECOND: The slide is called "Big Pink" but it's not all pink. True, pink is the general color scheme, it has a pink slide slot, but it also has a yellow one and a green/blue one. People kept calling the green one blue, even though I think it looks green. Whatever. I guess they decided to call it the "Big Pink" because the "Big half of an odd looking rainbow" was too long for the sign.

THIRD: Some people have a normal intelligence. Some people are very stupid. Some of those people who are stupid are children. That is forgivable because they are children. But some of those stupid people are adults. That is not forgivable because they are raising said stupid children, which means said stupid children are going to remain stupid and raise stupid children of their own. You see the evil stupid cycle? A stupid child is a child that doesn't remember the dirty blanket they just carried all the way up the stairs is there for a reason, and they are supposed to ride it down the ride, not just give it to me like it's to pay for their fare. A stupid adult is an adult that puts the blanket down, then sets their infant child on the blanket, and then struggles to sit on the blanket without sitting on their child's head. How hard is it to realize you need to sit on the blanket, then put your child in front of you? A stupid person also tries to sit down on the blanket while keeping one foot on the bottom stair. They place their left foot two steps up in the air and on the blanket, while keeping the right foot on the bottom stair. They then try to sit down with one leg behind them. Then they try to Stretch Armstrong their back leg up and around their head to get it in front of them. Why not just step up, step on the slide, then sit down? Why? Because they are stupid.

FOURTH: Fine: Large children who ride by themselves. Not fine: large children that want to ride with their parents. Their parents sit on the blanket and ask me to lift their child up over the railing and set their child neatly in their lap. This is ok on my back if the child is two years old and weighs the same as a watermelon. This is not ok if their child is 2 years old and weighs as much as a three or four tires roped together. This hurts my back. Especially if the child kicks and screams, which brings me to...

FIFTH: Look at her. She is kicking and screaming. She is openly weeping tears that would make an over-dramatic actor embarrassed. She is clenching the bars so tight, her knuckles are white. I get the feeling she doesn't want to go on the slide. BUT because the "Big Pink" is at least three stories in the air, and the parent had to walk three flight's worth of stairs, the parent is not backing down. They didn't waste all that energy of walking those stairs for nothing. Their child will ride this ride. The child may not like it, but there is no way the parent is just going to let all that walking be forgotten. I wouldn't mind this so much if the parent wasn't beckoning to me to wrench the screaming child from the bars and place the child in the parent's lap. I don't want to force a child to do anything, and I certainly don't want to have to physically wrestle the child into doing anything she doesn't want to do. Please don't make me the bouncer for your child.

These were the only bad things about today. Some good things were:

A) I could see Renee on the Tilt-A-Whirl from where I was on the top of the slide, so we threw shakas at each other and danced for each other's enjoyment.

B) I was in the shade all day, and was high up above everyone, so I could just stand and sing whenever I felt like it. "Bye bye mein lieber herr, it was a sad affair but now it's OOooooverrrrr......"

C)The last 15 minutes of the day were made fun by the four little kids that kept riding my ride. They were one little kid and three siblings who were Russian. The 3 Russian kids would all run up and want to ride together, and the oldest boy was always concerned his sister and brother weren't going to go on the ready, set, go line. He would protest to them, "Russian russian russian READY SET GO russian russian." I thought it was funny he would say the ready set go in English. And the other little boy informed me that his mom told him he had to ride the slide 15 times before they could go home. He pointed to his mom, and I saw her sitting on a bench reading. The little boy would go down the slide, then come back up to me and ask how many times he had gone. "5 times!" "8 times!" "10 times! You're getting close!" The Russian kids soon grew bored and left, but the little kid was determined to finish out his duty to his mother. It was, after all, mother's day.

Happy Mother's Day!