Chris versus Playground: Round 3
I’m not a kid anymore
I’m writing this while in pain. I can only blame myself. Today, my pain is in the coccyx. Why? Because I still think I’m a kid physically, despite being quite out of shape. And, I have an unhealthy relationship with playground equipment.
It happened when we took my daughter to the park a couple days ago. The playground had a slide that was tall and had multiple bumps on it, ending in a flat area. Similar to the yellow slide in the image above, but with an additional bump, and slightly steeper.
She’s usually pretty brave on slides, but appeared hesitant this time. I offered to go first to show its inherent safety. And, I was wrong.
For a 35 year old adult, those slides with bumps and a flat ending portion need a warning. You will hurt your butt or tailbone. I went down and as I hit the last bump and the flat portion I knew I’d made a mistake.
Pain in that area is funny because it’s a lot of tingling, similar to banging your funny bone. It still hurts, but in a tingly sort of way.
I danced around holding my butt for a few minutes, and hoped the pain would subside.
Trying to sit directly on a flat bench, unable to put my weight fully down without major pain, told me I had once again hurt myself on children’s playground equipment.
That’s right, once again. Because this is not the first time a children’s playground toy has attacked me.
The Springy Horse Incident
A year or two ago, I sat on one of those springy horses that go back and forth. Except, I was too fat and it basically just tilted straight back.
Without thinking, I decided to slide off, causing the horse to spring back and forth with the force of a thousand sledgehammers and smack me directly in my leg (narrowly missing another more important appendage).
Every time we passed that playground afterwards, my daughter would point out the springy horse that had hurt me. I’m surprised nothing broke, it hit with a ton of force.
Slide part 1
A few years before the horse incident, I had slid down a children’s slide at an RV park, and had a similar tailbone smashing landing at the bottom. The pain subsided after a few weeks, though I don’t think I ever took an X-Ray to see if it was broken. This was also before I had children, so it was just my wife and I sitting at a playground when I decided it would be a good idea to try the slide.
A smarter man would know to avoid playground equipment by now. But my daughter likes me to play on it with her, so I tend to leap into action without thinking.
Hashtag “dadlife”
I got an X-ray on Monday and am awaiting the results. Hopefully I’ve only bruised my coccyx and my ego. A fracture would be bad because the only remedy for a break in that area is time and pain management.
I sit at a desk for a living, and already being back at work this week, I’m having trouble sitting for long periods of time without standing up and walking around a bit.
Looking back to an article I wrote here about wanting to start skating again, I can only assume I have some sort of crazy delusion about my actual age and physical shape. And, obviously, this new incident gives my wife more reason to deny my desire to start skating again.
The playground always wins
The best advice I can give to other participant parents out there, who want to play at the playground with their kids, but also want to survive it without injury is to avoid bumpy slides and springy toys.
Bumpy slides may look inviting, but the final bump into the flat area will almost always end in a painful butt landing. And, springy toys, for anyone over the weight of a small adolescent, tend to spring back too far and attack indiscriminately if you try to dismount them while in full tilt.
And now, I’m off go sit on some frozen vegetables for awhile. If you need an excuse to avoid eating your vegetables, just remember that dad was sitting on them previously, and it should do the trick.
