My friend and I were sitting in her kitchen, eating a snack and drinking coffee and admiring the flowers on the table, when the text came. Slip and slide party? Of course we wanted to go their house right now, despite my friend's needing to get to the lab. In ten minutes, we had our bathing suits on, and were driving up the street to where her friends had set up in their back yard a three-laned Slip-n-Slide that was about ten feet long, with little pools and bumpers at the end. It was barely longer than an adult person's body. But it was exactly what I think we all needed. Or at least I did.
It was like therapy, actually. Because I was traumatized by a slip-n-slide at a very young age. My mother had dropped me off at a daycare one day in perhaps early summer or late August. They had set up a slip-n-slide outside in the back yard, which was conveniently on a hill, so to facilitate the sliding motion for our slipping pleasure. It was one of those old slip-n-slides, back in the 80's, which was barely more than a strip of yellow tarp with a perforated tube along the side to keep it damp. I was probably about 6 at the time. The slip-n-slides they make these days are pretty high-tech. They've got bumpers, arches, multiple lanes. All kinds of things. Back then, we had our plastic, and we were happy. So we'd go down the thing, and get grass-burned at the end, since there was nothing to stop you from keeping going once the plastic ran out.
I probably had a few successful runs. But I don't remember much except giving myself a good running start, and then, as I prepared to glide gracefully down the hill, stepping on the yellow plastic, and instead of launching myself forward into an athletic and perfectly formed slide, my feet slipped out from under me, and I landed backward, right on my head. It was a bit surprising, and disappointing, mainly because I didn't get to go down the thing. I don't remember much until my mom came to get me. I wasn't too fond of slip-n-slides after that. I did go on them occasionally, but always with great caution, and never on a hill.
So here I was, facing a three-lane, tri-color slip-n-slide, where, for some reason, the owners of the slide had decided to place at the beginning of it, a big green tarp covered with soap and water. The theory was that it would help you slip and slide more. It did, but only if you wanted to slip in slide in place, as one guy found out. I knew better.
They were yelling at me as I moved the tarp aside, but I didn’t care. Thoughts of potential head injury haunted my brain, and as the ground underneath was basically dirt, I didn’t want to mess with it. I needed my approach to be clean and non-soapy. It was. And it was great. I got a couple steps of a running start, and I conquered all ten feet of that glorious plastic. And I conquered it backwards. And back again. I conquered my fears. I took back my pride. And I am no longer afraid of wet, slippery plastic. I just won’t set one up on a hill for my kids.
What I would like to know is, how did they know I needed a Slip-n-Slide party? Who knows? That’s the way things go in San Francisco, or so it seems.
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