When A Picnic Becomes A Thrill Ride

I’m at a potluck picnic with my friends. One is the mother of a four-year-old girl and a toddler, while the other was made the godfather of the aforementioned children. We are all prone to some good-natured teasing of each other, and the below clearly was intended as our normal ribbing of each other.

Godfather: “[Mother] and [Her Husband] were so clearly first-time parents. I couldn’t play with [Daughter] at all before one of them would freak out worrying she would get hurt somehow.

Mother: “Yeah, [Her Husband] was super protective.”

Godfather: “He may have been a little worse, but you were pretty bad yourself.”

Mother: “No, I wasn’t!”

Godfather: “I seem to recall you freaking out just because I happened to be dangling your toddler upside down by her heels. I still had two hands on her and everything! I never get to do the fun stuff with the munchkins.”

Mother: “You were just throwing [Daughter] on the couch yesterday.”

Godfather: “Bah, that wasn’t a proper throw! I had both hands on her guiding her down the whole way. That’s more like putting a kid down for a nap a little faster than normal. Any other kid who didn’t have paranoid parents would have gotten a real throw!”

Me: “So, when you say you wouldn’t trust a kid as far as you could throw them, you know exactly how far that is, then?”

Godfather: “Of course. I’m terrific at toddler tossing!”

Me: “What an amazing alliterative answer.”

Mother: “As if you could toss [Daughter] with those geeky non-muscles of yours.”

Godfather: “Is that permission to try?”

Mother: “As long as the kids are having fun and aren’t hurt, and [Her Husband] isn’t around to see it, have fun.”

Here, [Godfather] got a downright evil grin on his face.

Godfather: “Oh, really? So, I can play with [Daughter] the way I want right now and you won’t freak out?”

Mother: “As long as you don’t hurt her.”

Godfather: “Great. Hey, [Daughter], want to spin extra fast?”

Daughter: “Yeah!”

Godfather: “Are you sure? it will be a lot faster than I usually spin you.”

Daughter: “Spin me!”

Godfather: “Okay. Then lie down on your back with your feet in the air. If it’s too much for you, or anyone in the peanut gallery, just tell me and I’ll stop, okay? Ready?”

He grabs her legs and starts spinning her like he is doing the hammer throw at the Olympics. As he speeds up, he has to lean further and further back to counteract the centrifugal force until he’s almost at a forty-five-degree angle.

Godfather: “Are you okay? Want to do more?”

I hear her respond but can’t make out her words. Presumably, it’s a yes since he now starts to raise and lower his arms while continuing to spin, so that [Daughter] lifts up to his head level and then lowers back down to waist level once or twice per rotation.

Godfather: “Want to do more?”

Another presumed yes; now he starts to rotate his wrists back and forth so her whole body rotates from looking to the left to right and back again, while still continuing to spin in circles and lift up and down. I’ve seen amusement park rides that didn’t manage to fit in that much complexity.

Godfather: “Think we should do even more?”

A third apparent yes from the girl.

Godfather: “What do you think, Mom? Should we do more?”

Mother: “No, no, that’s enough! Please just put her down!”

Godfather: “Spoilsport!”

I’m not sure how he will manage to stop spinning without dropping or hurting her, but he manages a controlled stop that looks well-practiced. As soon as [Daughter] stops, she jumps up and starts begging to do it all over again.

Godfather: “You sure you want to do it again? Why don’t you first show me you’re not too dizzy by trying to walk a straight line to Mom?”

She tries, and she gets about four steps into an extremely drunken walk before falling on her butt. This doesn’t stop her from asking a few times that day to be spun by her feet again, not that her mom will let her.

Out of curiosity, I ask [Godfather] about it later.

Me: “So, when you were spinning [Daughter], what would you have done next if [Mother] hadn’t chickened out?”

Godfather: “No clue. I’ve never done more than that with other kids I spun. Good thing [Mother] broke first without calling my bluff.”