Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Tarp Fun

No, I didn't mean to say TARP Fund, although a lot of people these days ARE talking about the TARP Fund. I meant to say tarp fun.

I used to have a friend whose children could NOT make their own fun. Everything had to be premade for them. These kids even took their Nintendo when our two families went camping together. (Camping being one place a person would normally use a tarp.) This friend used to tell me she envied me my kids. My kids could make fun from almost anything.

One summer it was hot. And Humid, with a capital H. People stayed in places where there was air conditioning unless venturing outside was completely unavoidable.

The house we were living in had little to no insulation. In the winters we would have little snow drifts on the inside window sills. We had yet to buy the window air conditioning unit that was powerful enough to cool down one room, but that we overworked to death almost by trying to have it cool off our whole downstairs.

We were miserable, to say the least, that one hot and Humid summer. Until my kids came up with an idea.

They got a tarp and some rope from our camping supplies and headed to our unfinished basement. They ran the rope through each corner grommet of the tarp and then hooked the rope up and over beams on the basement ceiling. They pulled the corners of the tarp up higher and higher until they were about three feet from the floor. This of course left a considerable amount of tarp still on the floor. (We had big tarps.)

Then they got the hose. They filled the tarp with water and VIOLA! Instant swimming pool.

It didn't stay up long, but while it did they had fun. And my friend's envy of my children and their "thinking outside the box" mentality grew even more.

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I'm not sure if taking some Phentermine 37.5 mg would have helped my friend. Nah. Probably not. She eventually moved to Washington DC, where, perhaps, she is dealing with the real TARP Fund.

5 comments:

Rebecca said...

Unfortunately too many kids were raised like your friends and not like yours. There's definitely something to be said for creativity and imagination. Plus, how fun to have a swimming pool in the basement!! :)

Anonymous said...

My fun consisted of sticking my nose in a book. I was not an active child. I probably would have been jealous of your kids' ingenuity also!

ShannonW said...

What is the point of taking a gaming system with you camping? That is no fun.

Anonymous said...

Oh, that sounds like fun-though, how did it get cleaned up?

I had a very active imagination when I was younger...hell, I still have a good imagination. I can't remember being at a loss for things to do very often.

Misty DawnS said...

What a great idea! That sounds like so much fun! How'd the get rid of the water after they were done?