Kaylin and I decided that we'd give my buddy Ryan a hand this weekend and try to tire his two girls out Saturday morning. To enact this brilliant scheme, I told Kaylin that we'd go to Adventures on Wonderland. “Where do you want to go?” I'd ask Kaylin merrily “I want to go to bentures!” she'd respond. “I'm sorry, I don't understand, where do you want to go?” I'd tease again. “I WANT TO GO TO BENTURES!”
My plan was a little TOO brilliant though, as Kaylin decided that she wanted to go to “Bentures” at 5:30am on Saturday morning. I took her downstairs to the TV, and put Monsters Inc on for an hour and a half (during which I napped a couple of times.
Char got up and gave me an early anniversary gift, tickets to Tegan and Sara (along with some surprise babysitting for the evening). YAY! Grown up dinner, conversation, and live music!
Ryan, Cordie and Paige popped by around 10:30 and we headed over to Adventures on Wonderland.
Adventures is quite the place. First, it requires socks, which apparently some folks (RYAN) didn't know. We be-socked his girls, and headed in. There's some smaller play equipment in the front room, a little ball pit, some small climbing things, that sort of stuff. Ryan commented at one point “this place is a bit of a scam hey?”, to which I replied, “Oh my friend, you've not seen the coolness yet.”
We dished out some snacks for the rug rats and headed to the back where they have what can only be described as a human habitrail. It's monsterous, around 20' tall, about 30 feet long, and probably 15 feet deep. Kaylin immediately jumped into its waiting maw and vanished promptly.
There she is. Nope, she's gone.
There she is, nope, lost her again.
I think I see her, nope.
Every time she surfaced, she was running at full speed, as fast as her tiny toddler limbs would fling her. There, gone, there, gone. Bouncing, then down again.
She was suddenly running towards me at one point saying “Addy addy addy” (yeah, I'm “addy” all of a sudden) “Somebody's coming”, then just as suddenly she was gone.
There she is. Nope, gone again. There she is, nope lost her again.
She appeared again saying “You come? You helpa me climb?”
Thinking nothing of it, I thought, “SURE! This will be fun.”
What next occurred will scar me for the rest of my life.
I'm what they kids call a “big guy”. I'm not fat per se, but I'm big. Six feet, a couple and a quarter hundred pounds. Big shoulders, big chest. I'm swarthy. Some might say “strapping”.
The human habitrail is meant for small people. Children mostly. Slight women fit. Maybe the odd androgynous male.
Not a big guy.
Certainly not a big 35 (soon to be 36) year old guy.
Now Kaylin is unaware of this. I'm Daddy (or presently “Addy”), she cares not for the plight of the larger man. Get a move on addy, hustle it. Come come COME!
So we start our ascent, and at some point I'm thinking “probably not a great idea”. We continue. She vanishes, her head reappears “Come on daddy. Come come come.”
Okay, thinks I, this must be some land of fun and wonderment up here. Let's get going. So I climb. I'm 20' above land. I'm in a tube designed for a kid. I can't really get on my hands and knees, but I can crawl in a worm like manner. So crawl I do. I mosey, I sashay, I move like the wind (or a giant worm in my case). And I start to panic a little.
Now here's a good place for an aside. I'm not particularly fond of three things.
1 – Snakes.
2 – Crowds.
3 – Small, enclosed spaces.
There were no snakes.
There were no crowds. Just me and Kaylin up here in the stratosphere.
However, what do we have in spades for him Bob? How about Small Enclosed Spaces Jim! Yup, we've got a buttload of those. How does about 800 feet of small enclosed space with a few punched out holes for breathin' and some windows in the side to see how well and truly “French Connection United Kingdom”'ed you are?
DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER!
So here I am, 20 feet in the air, having a bit of a “moment” with the only person who can help me being a “very close to her naptime” toddler who usually requires a translator to have others understand what she's saying (who therefore is not a great candidate to run to the bottom of the structure and tell someone that her daddy is trapped in a portion of the habitrail and would you please drill him out thank you very much, since it's likely to come out as “I want cracker”).
Eventually Kaylin and I navigated our way out, and I emerged kissing terra firma and thanking god that I am still alive.
Best part of the story. This morning Kaylin appeared next to Charlene's side of the bed at 6:30am, suitcase in hand, telling mommy “Mommy, I'm going on trip. I'm going to bentures!”.
Of course there was also much meme's, pepe's, aunties, uncles, cousins, grandma's, grandpas, and turkey, this weekend.
So much so that I need to go sleep some of it off.