Matters of justice get lost in red tape and bureaucracy.
—Ecclesiastes 5:8
In the foggy recess of my mind lurks the vision of a playground near Grandma’s house. This aging recreation area may have suffered from simpler architecture, but it offered what no other playground ever did: a hamburger tower.
That’s right: a two-story ladder in the middle of four poles holding up a hollow, metal delicacy.
The thrills of climbing this classic American delight were as delectable as the views; the joys of shouting down to a smaller Granny were more scrumptious than any scholastic achievement.
You can’t imagine the depth of disappointment that replaced the height of anticipation the first time I saw Hamburger Tower was gone. We heard they removed it because too many kids got stuck up there, afraid to climb down the way they came.
Losers, always ruining the best things for others.
Some schmuck with a fear of heights can’t figure out how to get down, so I’m grounded from the thrills of visiting Grandma?
Where’s the justice in this world?
Why must the competent suffer others’ incompetence?
Since when do we curb the construction of society to fit the limits of the inept and the shameful?
I mean, what kind of irresponsible guardian thought it wise to let Jimmy “Butter Fingers” climb a two-story ladder anyway?
And how about we start with a CAUTION sign that reads, “Not for morons or the faint of heart”?
What am I supposed to do now: scratch my itch for heights on the seesaw?
That tower was a monument to brave children everywhere. Kids like me came from miles away to experience the ascension into those recreational heights.
Instead of the fittest surviving, we force the brave and the able to lower their standards to those of the cowards and the nincompoops. It’s anti-Darwinism, is what it is.
I say let the Hamburger Towers of the world stand tall, and whoever gets stuck up there rot of starvation in the most ironic fashion.
Why should the capable be deprived of challenge?
Why should the adventurous be tamed?
Why should those of us with a grip as sure as Elmer’s be subject to the demolition of the playgrounds we love?
I thought this was America! Fuck Jimmy “Butter Fingers.”