i think it is unjust to deny a child their right to dig a hole motivelessly
when i was 12 i was out there with a shovel for no reason
When I was in elementary school they replaced the playground substrate from sand to bark, but to do that they literally just dumped all of the bark on top of the sand.
For some reason all of us children were livid about this and demanded the sand be brought back, so the kids all sat shoulder to shoulder on their butts and used their legs to kick all of the bark back, progressing through the playground with startling efficiency. There was even a “WHAT DO WE WANT? SAND!” chant going STRONG
3rd grade teacher runs out, near tears, begging us to stop, and this is where she FUCKS UP because she says
“I don’t care if you dig a hole to China just stop DOING THAT”
well we stopped doing that, and immediately began construction on The Hole
Within 3 days The Hole was about a foot and a half wide, but The Hole was DEEP. a 5th grader would hop down and disappear entirely. A mob bucket was confiscated from the janitor to deal with the the rising water problem as the hole got deeper. The sheer display of cooperation and dedication we had to The Hole bordered on reverence.
It was the highlight of the day to go to recess and resume construction of The Hole
Eventually I’m pretty sure a second grader fell in and twisted their ankle and then they put a piece of plywood over the top of the hole and covered it with sand and bark. We all forgot about it immediately and I don’t remember anyone ever bringing it up again
I abbreviate “Beetlejuice” to “BJ” with my one friend whose special interest is Beetlejuice and it’s fine, it’s protocol, it’s a Tuesday afternoon, but I just did it with another friend via the sentence, “I don’t even like BJ that much. I just wanna see that worm,” and it was a little less than fine, I think.
ALT
