Kid for a Day

Happy 4th of July!

My workplace had an early celebration yesterday, with a picnic in the park. We decided to recreate our childhoods by going down slides, hanging on monkey bars and having a very vicious water balloon fight.

Instead of little, fist-sized water balloons, we used regular balloons. This meant we could make enormous melon and eggplant-shaped bombs of doom. Due to the thickness of the latex, a lot of the balloons did not explode on impact. Instead, they provided a painfully large smack before bouncing off. (This meant intended victims would scramble to get the lost balloon, and try to return the favor).

At one point the fight moved off the grass onto the basketball court. A girl tripped on a balloon that was aimed at her feet and scraped her knee. Two other people somehow managed to cut themselves on the water fountain while filling balloons.

3 people were bleeding by the time we were done.

Afterwards, we behaved like responsible adults and picked up all the broken balloon fragments and put them in the trash.

However, everyone regressed again when it was time to light the barbecue grill. People were entranced by the fire, and started feeding paper plates, receipts from our wallets, sticks from the playground and dinner napkins into the charcoal pit.

One staff member asked, "How many degrees does it take to light a fire?"

The answer is 2 bachelor's, 3 master's and a PhD. (Plus a few more degrees as silent observers).

I found it rather funny that the same men who signed up to bring sodas, forks and chips (to avoid cooking) insisted on "manning" the grill. Everyone else was nervous though. Several people said, "John's cooking the burgers? Um, I think I'll have a hot dog. Those are pre-cooked right?"

My burger patty was warm (not hot) straight off the grill, so I made them cook it again.

In the end, it was a very fun day, and no one died from food poisoning.