The Playground

The Playground is an interesting phenomenon to me. I say "phenomenon" because it is so strange. The Playground, theoretically, should be grounds for play for children, not adults. However, over the past month or so I've become very aware that the Playground seems to be used more for adult benefit than for the kids. And I've summed up the women who go there into 4 categories:

Nancy Drews: These are the women who want to know everything about everyone's business, and can't stop talking about it. They stand there snooping around for clues, watching to see who's home and who's not, and who is hanging out with who. Or is it whom? I forget. Some journalism major I was.

Bitter Bees: These ladies want to tell you how bad everything is in their world. I have had one woman tell me (repeatedly) that she's moved 3 times in 3 years, can't wait for her husband to retire, and has made no friends during this time. Well, guess what lady? You just made me run screaming away from you as fast as possible. Yesterday a lady told me she hates it so much here after 2 months that she told her husband she wanted to move back to their house in North Carolina, and he told her to pack the truck. I almost burst out laughing!

The Social Bees: These are the women who go to The Playground under the guise of doing it for the children, when in reality, they just want to get out of the house and have some adult conversation. Admittedly, I fall into this category. I am not proud of it, but chasing Wyatt off the street, steering him away from the woods, and trying to prevent him from falling off the jungle gym is not my idea of a good time. He does get to burn off some steam, which is good, but this is a fringe benefit to the two reasons listed above. One day two women told me I'd have to forgive them, because they'd just drank an entire pot of coffee. With Bailey's. And it was 2 p.m. Hey, whatever floats your boat, I said.

The Model SAHMs: These moms are the Model Moms who do everything right. They go to the playground right after nap time (when they made fresh-baked cookies) but well before dinner so they still have time to prepare the 5-course meal and get it on the table by the time their spouse arrives home. Their houses are spic-and-span and their kids use perfect playground etiquette, while mine shoves them out of the way to get down the slide. One of the Model SAHMs told me she had to cancel our plans the day before Halloween because she had a costume "emergency." By all means - stop the press!!

I realize most of these categories have some sort of negative connotation, and by all means there are many very nice women that I've met at The Playground who are starting to become my friends. And when you think about it, we're all just trying to survive, and we seem to do it in one of these crazy ways. So no harm meant to anyone, I'm just trying to put people in a box :) For you dog lovers out there, I've likened the moms at The Playground to a pack of dogs trying to figure out their pecking order: Some of them growl, some of them shy away, some fight back, and some of them just plain roll over and play dead. And in the end, it's just survival of the fittest. See you at The Playground.