When '08 Becomes "Oh, Wait..."

There are a bunch of kids playing in a playground sandbox. They’ve played there for years, but now the sand in which they’re playing has become dirty and stale. There are sticks in it, and rocks, maybe a shard of glass here and there, and the kids quickly learn that it’s nearly impossible to play in. So these kids come up with three separate ideas of how to fix the sandbox. Kid A actually kind of likes the prospect of sticks and rocks in the sandbox, and while he’d like to rid the play area of glass shards, he decides that a sticks-and-rocks-box might actually be much more fun- rocks are a little easier to pick up than sand, after all, and more sticks means MORE SWORDFIGHTS! Conversely, Kid B believes that the sand is a great thing, but that they need to take a rake through the sandbox, and then go through and root out all of the rocks, sticks and glass by hand. It may get a little messy, some kids might get cut and bruised, but in the end, she believes it’s the only way to get their sand to be clean again. Kid C loves Kid B’s idea of clean sand, but believes that the sand currently in the sandbox is old and musty and irreparably tainted anyway. He believes that what the sandbox needs is a fresh batch of sand, clean and cool, and then they can continue playing in their sandbox.

But Kid C doesn’t just encourage the “sandbox crowd” to get in on the action. He walks over and asks the foursquare crowd if they’d like to help out. He walks over and asks the tetherball crowd if they’d like to help, and the basketball crowd, the hopscotch crowd, the jungle gym crowd… pretty soon, he’s got kids from each playground crowd willing to help him out. Some of them don’t really care much about playing in the sandbox, but want to be helpful to their friends. Others have never played in the sandbox before, because the sandbox crowd has always kind of been the “cool kids” and they never felt very welcome there, but they jump at the opportunity to play there now. And some kids have played in the sandbox before, but stopped playing after the sand got too dirty and dangerous; others got tired of hearing the cool kids bicker about who was the coolest. But no matter where these kids had come from, Kid C went after them and made them believe that the sandbox was important again, and that they each had a part in cleaning it up.

This threw Kid B for a loop, because Kid B really, REALLY liked this sand. She wanted to keep the old sand in the sandbox; after all, her and her daddy had donated this sand to the playground. They wouldn’t even have sand in their box if it wasn’t for her, she thought. Her daddy taught her all about the sand. She is an expert; she KNOWS this sand. That’s not the point, Kid C and his playground pals tell Kid B. The point is, this old sand is gross, and we could go through it and pick out all the little rocks and glass, but it will still be the same, stinky old sand.

“You’re stinky!” Kid B replies.

Ignoring her comment, Kid C explains that he and his cohorts believe new sand would be a cleaner, safer, much more effective way to allow the sandbox to continue to be a fun place, and to allow more kids to play in the sandbox as well. Hearing this, some of the sandbox crowd begins to agree, and starts to encourage Kid B to do the same.

“You’re stinky!” Kid B says again.

“Why are you being so mean?” the kids start to ask.

“Because he’s stinky!” Kid B responds.

The kids continue to ignore her chants of “Stinky!”, and begin making plans for how to get this new sand into the sandbox, what kind of sand it should be, what they might make out of the sand, etc. Meanwhile, Kid B begins dancing around and yelling at them, telling them all the icky rotten things that Kid C smells like, and how badly he smells of them.

“Stinky!” she screams, “Stinky! He’s stinky!”

Inundated with noise, a few kids finally start to question Kid C why she might think he’s stinky. As they get a little closer to hear his answers, they begin to ask themselves, does he really smell stinky? No, couldn’t be. But wait… *sniff sniff*… hmm. Maybe she’s right, but I can’t tell for sure… well, she’s been around for awhile, she probably knows what stinky smells like… but wait, she kind of smells like the stinky sand that she plays in all the time… wait, I thought this was about the sandbox, not what these kids smell like? I’m so confused! I think I’m going to go play tetherball again. Other kids begin to tire of being accused of hanging out with a stinky person. Some decide they actually think Kid B smells better, and begin to tell kids that Kid C smells so bad, he couldn’t possibly get new sand for the box, anyway. Some kids scratch their heads and wonder, like the first kid, how we got talking about scent instead of sand. Some stay behind to back up Kid C; others go back to the playground. Others stand around wondering what the heck just happened.

Meanwhile, Kid B has amassed just enough kids that think Kid C is stinky that they make up more than those who think Kid C isn’t stinky, and based upon what Kid B said about Kid C being stinky, they decide to keep the old sand. Kid B is happy that she got what she believed she deserved, telling Kid C no hard feelings. The kids on the playground go back to their usual business, the football crowd and the foursquare crowd, but they’re all very mad, both at Kid C for getting their hopes up, and Kid B for calling them names.

Sensing this anger, and seizing his moment, Kid A calls out across the playground,

“Hey guys, wanna play with sticks?!”