What Walks Downstairs?

Bet you all thought I was joking when I said I was gonna get my daughter a Slinky for Christmas, huh. Well, you're right. She didn't get one for Christmas but I recently got her one. This past weekend, I was rummaging around Wal-Mart's super-duper clearance bins for Xmas goods and ran into a Slinky Jr. Not only was finding it awesome, the fact that it was thirty cents made the find even cooler.

I remember now how we had to be careful with this one, we'd always end up pinching our arm hairs off

When I took it home and showed her how to use it, she didn't get such a big thrill outta it but you should have seen my brothers and me....we had some fun! It was the plastic version, which is not as good as the original metal one, but we tried our best to make it walk. We don't have stairs at my dad's house but we slanted the coffee table and were able to make it work. That's when I remembered why my brothers and I yearned to have a house with stairs when we were kids (until the two-story horror movies scared us outta that idea). As a kid, my dad's quick thinking saved the day....he got some discarded tabla, laid it at an angle against a fence, and set the Slinky to strut its stuff.

Since my daughter, upon learning how to use her Slinky didn't wanna share her toy anymore, I thought I'd go see if they still sold the original one. They still do. It's a real steal for three bucks at Wal-Mart. I bought it, telling the cashier that it was for my daughter; I felt like I needed to explain since she looked at me kinda weird. Taking the toy outta the box, it still had that chemical smell to it. Immediately I was reminded of the big difference between the plastic and metal version. Sure, neon colors were nice, but the metal one had more movement to it.

So, this past weekend, if you drove by Los Amores, you'd probably see a couple of adults and one lil girl huddled around an angled tabla seeing the Slinky do its thing. I ain't ashamed to say we had a blast.

It's all about simplicity, remember...and trying to get in touch with the child inside. Seems like I touch base every weekend, huh.