I want to tell you about a marking, fearsome event in my childhood. When I was younger, my parents would sometimes take me to the park. The parks we went to usually had those hollow twirling slides slides with interlocking plastic parts. They looked a lot like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kittybuttons/2265515875/
Anyway, the different parts of the slide are often held together by bolts with a flat end. As it turns out, those things were dangerous! My parents would usually take me to play during the summer. And what did I wear during the summer? Shorts and long sleeves. And what does that mean? It means more skin was exposed. Now, on top of being supercharged with static energy from your body and your hair rubbing against the plastic in the closed area, you're about to get a quick (but not painless) shock on your way down.
This may not seem like a big deal, but to a three year old, it's a traumatizing experience! And if that wasn't enough, seeing me cry, me parents would assume I was just afraid of the slide (because I couldn't put into words the "zapping" feeling I got and I was quite the little drama queen to begin with so they may also have assumed this was just one of my moments) and so I was put on that damn thing another 3 or 4 times before either of them realized maybe the problem didn't lie in my fear of the slide, but in the slide itself.
I now appreciate my ability to communicate effectively and put everything I'm thinking, feeling and fearing into words. And so I speak for the young who do not possess this luxury: Those slides can hurt!
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