- Tabbes: Y'know, when I was a kid... I know, I know, it's such a basic start-off. I'm gonna be using that right now since my mind is sapped out of interest at the moment. So when I was a kid, I used to go to the playground like everyday. I have no idea how it is nowadays. I went to the park yesterday and I saw like two kids there. Two kids meaning babies who are forcefully brought with their parents against their own will being pushed on swings. It's summer! Where ya all at?! It's like you're all suddenly allergic to sunlight or something. I'm gonna blame this sign right here which I have no idea why it exists in the first place. "STRICTLY NO RUNNING OR PLAYING AT PLAYGROUND". What the fuck am I supposed to do here then? Oh wait, I know what to do. (scribbles on the sign, crossing out "PLAYGROUND" and writing "OUTDOOR LIBRARY") There! You fucking posers. Realistically speaking, everyone's probably chilling at home, playing with their iPads or PS3s. It's a changing world, and that's not always a good thing. Anyways, I don't know how many of you can relate with this one, but these are things I remember happening at the playground as a kid. TAG was the bomb, you already know! I remember when we would kinda chant those poem things like, "Diggy diggy diamond!" or "Bubblegum bubblegum in a dish!!" to see who's it or determine who's safe from being it. Kinda reminded me of being in a cult, not that I would know. Most of the time though, these kids were absolute madmans. We were like what, eight? And they were saying things like:
- Kid #1: Get the fuck out.
- Kid #2: OOOH, you said a bad word!!
- Kid #1: ..OK. Get the fuck out.
- Tabbes: Too bad some of our parents overheard us, and some kids couldn't play or hang out anymore because of that. Besides that, playing tag was everything you would expect. Body slamming other kids to the ground and bruising them if they try to run too fast. (GAMBLING) I was played for a fool when I was little with my little brain. I'd say I was seven years old when I got my first Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon cards, and these cards were the shit. PERIOD. You were a cool kids if you had these cards back then. So basically this one group of older girls would spot me just holding them and sit me down. Why did I bring those cards to the playground in the first place? Because I did. We would just play a game of rock paper scissors and they would just take my #THICC Exodia Legs and Dark Magicians just like that. They didn't give two shits if I won or lost. They would try to trick into thinking I lost every single round. I knew I was young, but I wasn't that young. It's not like I was a neanderthal fetus that didn't even know how to play a basic game like rock paper scissors. You know I snitched on parents just to get them back because these pinky-sized fists could do nothing back then. There weren't real cards but I just love the art on it, hence why I didn't wanna lose it in the first place. (GETTING RUN OVER) I was really young this time but I remember this really clearly because it was pretty traumatic. I was sitting down playing with mud or dirt or something and this girl with her dirt mountain bike just comes full speed at me and rolls over my body. Oh yeah, sure, that's completely fine, just roll over my face. I just fall and she zips right through. WHAT THE FUCK!?! Did you not feel my body under you!? Who let you have a bike?? Again, my mom saw that and found the parents of that girl and made her apologize to me even though I have this pattern run through my groin through my face. SWINGS were pretty fun! We have the monkey-like climbers and the risky jumpers. But there was this one time a group of kids were surrounding this one part of the swing and I went to see what was going on. This boy was going super high and tried to 360 that shit. Nope, he fell on his ass so hard before that happened and got some kind of injury. And the other kids were just like:
- Kids: OOOF!!! That ain't how physics work.
- Tabbes: Those ropes wouldn't keep that support long enough for anyone to go all the way around. One time my friend actually tried to the same thing though. (HIS NAME'S JOE.) Being little hooligans and all, but not by riding it, instead pushing it and trying to test his strength, while my brother and I were just watching. This was at night and some lady caught us and called the cops on us. She thought our friend was a dad because he was pretty big. Plus she couldn't really see our faces but really just our silhouettes. She yelled:
- Lady: HEY!!!! You're a terrible example for your kids!!
- Tabbes: We left the park after that happened because we we scared shit-less and found our way home. (MERRY-GO-ROUND) This thing was SO dangerous that eventually it was taken out of the playground near me. I'd say that at least one out of five kids always got injured from riding this. We would always try to see which kid was the most stubborn and flew off last. Pretty morbid but interesting to see that no one stopped us sooner. One by one kids would be flung off the merry-go-round and someone would get injured each round (Hey I can see my bone!!!!!) or have their face-planted to their ground. Here's a trick I've always used though, instead of grabbing the poles since it gets slippery from hand sweat after a while, just hold on to the opposite arm sleeve fabric of your shirt. It never fails to work. The worst that could happen is that you get extremely dizzy and barf it all out. (WATER FIGHTS) Every kid loved water balloons, water guns and water bottle wars. Kids didn't care to get wet and they would actually get more aggressively competitive with each pop that went on their back. I remember getting fairly upset when I couldn't get those kids back because I had no water balloons. (YOU WANNA GO?!?) I dare you to do that again! (SPLAT, triggered zoom in on the kid with brief heavy metal music sample) So I would look through trash bins, find whatever bottle I could, and attack with that nasty water or the mix of unknown juices. Who knows, maybe somebody could've peed in one of them. It was dirty play, but it ended with our side winning eventually. (STUCK ON THE MONKEY BARS) I was climbing the top of the monkey bars, right? But I accidentally slipped through the hole of the ladder. Instead of falling, my arms just hung from each side with my armpits on two bars of the ladder. When that's the only support of your body, that shit hurts! And it wasn't like I could fall off either because my body just wasn't allowing it. My brother was just sucking on his lollipop and watching because he was too young to do anything back then. So I lost hope. At that moment, my life was flashing before my eyes thinking, "This is it, I'm gonna lose my arms. I'm not gonna be able to draw or play sports anymore." But then I actually thought of that and I was thinking, "Eh, I'm not doing that." And I yelled from the top of my lungs until an adult came to bring me down. I probably missed a lot of topics like jungle gyms, getting tons of scars from playing too much and fighting, climbing playground roofs and other things, but this is what I can briefly remember for now, at least from what I did as a kid.
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- Tabbes: Side note: To every single person who attended the fan meet, you just have no idea how happy we were to see you guys there, even though I don't really sound like it. You guys filled up the whole space and people were still waiting outside. That's crazy! So I just wanna say "Thank you" to everyone who came to this meetup and "Thank you" to everyone who couldn't come but wanted to and still supported us from the sides. You're all fucking amazing, you know that?