My friend Chris’ birthday was about a week ago, and his wife threw him a surprise birthday party Friday night. She chose what is basically an indoor playground for the location. There are oversize bouncy houses, blow-up slides that are two-stories high, zip-line ropes and swings.
When I got the Evite, I e-mailed Lesley and said, “Really? This is weird, right? It’s Chris’ 40th birthday and we’re going to a freakin’ playground?” (THIS is the kind of good and supportive friend I am, folks!)
“Yup! His wife swears he’s going to love it.”
Okay, whatever. Not my birthday.
So for the three weeks leading up to this party, we were all sort questioning the logic of this. I mean, C’mon, we even had to sign waivers saying if we got hurt it was our responsibility, not theirs. Um, yeah, when you have a bunch of 40-year-olds swinging from playground equipment you can bet your ass someone is going to get hurt and that waiver won’t mean shit.
I spent most of Friday afternoon wondering how in the world I was going to get out of this.
But as the wise Lesley kept reminding me, we need to keep an open mind.
This was either going to really suck—or be the most fun thing we’ve ever done.
Well, let me tell you, we had so much damn fun! I feel like an asshole for complaining about this. Less than a minute after being in there, 20 adults were running, flying down the inflatable slides, swinging and hanging from ropes, climbing up things, playing Air Hockey (yes, I got my ass kicked) and ping-pong and pelted each other in The Most Dangerous Game of Dodge Ball EVER!
It was awesome. And like Lesley said after watching this video, we all looked to damn happy!
My 40th birthday is later this month and I’m thinking about having it at a roller rink.
All Skate! All Skate!
(Chris, you better be prepared to lace up some skates!)
PS: Sorry about the video quality. I’m got to try and resave it. I think it saved down too small.
The Kids...
OMG, dude. I can’t remember the last time I had such a blast. WHO KNEW? (Well, Kristi knew, that’s who.) I think I was on euphoric high for the rest of the night. Must have been all the blood rushing around in my head from all the bouncing. Plus? If I had one of those big slides and one of those bouncy houses in my living room, I’D NEVER HAVE TO TO GO THE GYM AGAIN.
Hurry up and commit to the roller rink party. I’ve got work to do!!
(YOU KNOW, LIKE DESIGNING AND PRINTING THE NEXT ROUND OF WAIVERS. AHEM.)
“Getting old sucks.” Heh.
“Happy Birthday, Mouse.” The possibly-related posts always kill me.
had a blast…thanks for coming out Mo
depending on when the Roller Rink is…I may be back in the home country …so I might miss the “all skate” LOL
C
Chris: We will schedule around you, SO THAT IS CALLED A NICE TRY.
And no one got hurt? That’s cool. I know they do a lot of corporate retreats at places like this and it seems to do wonders for morale. LIke everyone said – who knew?
I didn’t see the bar anywhere, what’s up with that Snark? And you had fun? Impossible!
That looks so dam fun. I want to figure out how to do that for my birthday next year. 30. *ducks for cover*
We went to Wolf Creek later so the alcohol was there! But can you imagine? I actually had fun? The world can end now.
Well, no one got *seriously* hurt. I have cuts and bruises and a few others got burned from the slide, but nothing broken as far as I know!
DUDE. I will schedule the party around you to make you skate. You’re Canadian—you can skate right?
We should probably hire Kristi to be our party planner from now on because she’s clearly the only one of use who knows how to have goofy fun. Something which some of us, ehem, don’t know a damn thing about.