WHADDAH YOU LOOKIN AT! Getting Into An Enormous Tubular Playset With Your Son Rarely Ends Well

Does anyone remember how tortuously hot the summer of 1999 was? I do, because that July I took my nine-month-old (Dan) and four-year-old (Tim) to visit my mother in New York City. Unfortunately, mom’s AC unit was on the fritz. For two days I tried to keep the boys entertained in the blistering heat. They were troopers, but we were exhausted.

On the morning of day three, I learned there was an indoor play place not far away. We arrived at the air-conditioned fun center ten minutes before it opened. I got a large pizza and lots of soda while Tim tore up the video games and other attractions. I relaxed, trying to get my core temperature below 120 degrees.

Relaxing was a relative term. The indoor venue was a sensory overload of yelling kids, loud arcade bells and greasy food smells. I treated myself to an extra-large root beer—a rarity for me—followed by three slices of nasty arcade pizza.

My rest was short-lived. After wolfing down my final slice, Tim bounded over and asked me to join him in an enormous tubular play set. The stock photo above doesn’t do the behemoth justice. The beast was at least three to four times bigger and five times less sanitary.

My mother volunteered to watch Dan, so I reluctantly agreed. I figured no one knew me there and Tim deserved it for being such a trooper. It could be a good bonding moment.

I wasn’t in the Habitrail structure long when all the bending, stale sock smells, slimy surfaces and ear-piercing yelps made my stomach turn. Being hunched over in there after inhaling three, okay it was four, slices of pizza was making me nauseous. I had to get out soon, so I started looking for an exit. 

After two minutes of climbing, shimmying, and crawling, I had no exit in sight. Signaling through several smelly, grease-smeared windows, I tried to get help from the pimply-faced staff members. To my dismay, no employees responded to the frantic, ashen adult who was stupid enough to get inside the two-story bacterial colony. Even the other adults outside my plastic prison averted their eyes.

I was on my own while a root beer/pizza bubble was reaching critical mass.

I told my son, “Tim, we gotta get out of here!”

Tim retorted, “But Daaaaaaaad!”

He hadn’t finished that simple sentence when I shouted, “DON’T START MISTER! WE’RE GETTING OUT OF HERE NOW!”

After seeing my head spin for the first time, Tim immediately fell in line.

I crazily led my son through the maze of tubes, nets, slides and ball pits trying to find a way out. The playful children’s safety was the last thing on my mind. I barreled through one group in the ball pit and literally climbed over three kids on a net ladder. My next obstacle was a group of three kids blocking passage over a bridge. Two of the boys were shaking everyone down for prize tickets.

This percolating man had no time for Tony Soprano Jr.’s extortion. So, before the boys could say “Badda Bing,” I elbowed those mobsters-in-training into a nearby tube slide.

The boys warned, “Yaw gunna pay faw dissssssssssssssss” as they slid into another junior gangster’s turf.

The smells, stale air and physical exertion had my puke-o-meter pegged. I was about to give up when I smelled an odor other than fermented socks wafting up a tube slide. That rank smell was the nasty pizza served outside by the crack, ignoring staff. That odor was my way out!

I dove headfirst into the spiral tube, slid about four yards, then flopped onto the dining area floor.

I laid half-conscious on my back gasping the sweet, semi-fresh air. Tim plopped out of the tube shortly after me. Slowly, I started to make out fuzzy images of small people around me. I could sense that all motion and noise in the place ceased, and all eyes had turned to the pasty-faced man on the floor.

One stout little guy observed, “Gee Mistah, yooo doan look too good.”

Short on patience—and white blood cells—I screamed at the crowd, “WHADDAH YOU LOOKIN AT!!!”  

I took the assistant manager’s raised eyebrows and approaching security guard as a cue that this “dad of the year” had worn out his welcome. I packed everyone up and headed back outside, claiming I’d be back to redeem our prize tickets.

So much for a cool, relaxing afternoon!