Good Friday, Bad Back

In my business, we get the day off for stock market holidays. In the past, I almost always played golf on those days, but I don’t play golf anymore because those holidays typically mean no school. Now, I find myself at Kids’ Empire, KidMania, or some other indoor playground chock-full of grade school children. For Good Friday, Ella wanted to go to Altitude, the trampoline park.

At first thought, a trampoline park sounded like a fun idea. Now, I think a trampoline park is every personal injury attorney’s vision of heaven. I had an inclination, and my visit confirmed, that these parks were not designed for human spines, especially not 53-year-old spines.

Admittedly, I did not read the waiver that I had to sign before entering the trampoline area, but I knew it must have been full of legal Cover-Your-Ass language when I read the list of rules posted on the wall.

Rule #1: Do not land on your head.

Ok, good safety tip, but the fact that they had to list this as the first rule concerned me. I was a daredevil as a little boy, but I never once tried to intentionally land on my head. There has to be a story behind that rule. I’m guessing some time in the past, the staff overheard a group of kids say, “Hey, let’s jump as high as we can and land on our heads.” I’m also guessing that most of that group of kids is now serving in the U.S. Congress.

Ella asked me to jump with her, so I bought us both a pass and a pair of the required Altitude knobby socks. After all, if you are going to spend the day breaking your spine, you want to make sure your feet have good traction. I walked up to the first trampoline, stepped on, and then I took a jump so small that my feet barely left the trampoline. Yet, I could hear every vertebra in my spine scream, “What the hell are you doing?”

I entered Altitude with two herniated disks; I left with eight.

So, I watched Ella jump from trampoline to trampoline for about 20 minutes when she said, “Daddy, let’s go in there.” As she pointed to the Dodgeball cage. The PTSD from junior high hit me immediately, as visions of Coach Alvey firing fastballs at my head every Friday rushed to the forefront of my brain. The man seemed to enjoy pummeling 12-year-old boys with volleyballs, and when he threw at you, he had only two targets. Hitting one target would ensure that you had a red mark on your face for the better part of a week. Hitting the other target ensured that you would never have children.

I had to giggle at one family playing dodgeball because the father obviously came from the Alvey school of dodgeball. His wife was none too thrilled when he drilled his six-year-old son in the face with a fastball. The look of horror she threw at her spouse showed me that she doesn’t understand the life lessons of dodgeball. This game isn’t for sissies. I feared Coach Alvey farther into adulthood than was emotionally healthy, but I have to admit, the man did toughen me up.

Ella had a great time, and as usual, my little social butterfly made friends. She spent most of the day jumping with Mackenzie and Brian. I could not have been happier because that meant that I didn’t have to jump with her.

A key takeaway from my trip was realizing my next business venture. I am going to open a trampoline park, but my competitive advantage will be the attached Chiropractic Clinic/Bar and Grill called The Spinal Compression Lounge. This will be a place where the parents can get a spinal adjustment and drink away their lower back pain while their children taunt the Angel of Death and continually violate Rule #1 of the trampoline park.

And in case you are curious, no, despite the constant lower back pain induced by indoor playgrounds, I don’t miss playing golf on my days off.