The Eighth Page

Lament of a Fall Carnival Wrecking Ball

It is 8:00 on a Saturday night. I could be wrecking clubs, breaking walls, licking hammers – but no. Here I am, nailed into the dirt of some high school called “Andover”. 2000s babies are slithering all over my beautiful, neon-yellow, plastic skin.

They screech, clawing at my sides, trying to knock down one another with me. I yell, “There are more than seven things I hate about you!!!!”, bouncing violently in attempt to dismount the frothing freshmen.

An overwhelming cloud of B.O. clings to my appendages. A girl’s sharp lanyard whips my tender skin.

A group of boys shove each other, as I lie below in a state of irritation. I feel a puddle of hot cider pooling in my seams… (Is it hot cider????)

I don’t think they ever meant to start a war. They think it’s a party in the U.S.A.

WELL, IT’S NOT. I am a living, breathing thing, too. I guess they wanted me to let them win. I can’t be tamed. I gotta do my thang. I am not an ordinary girl.

My brother, Inflatable Obstacle Course, is bouncing up and down, shouting, “Haha! I rug-burned you! Haha!”.
My sister, Bouncy Slide, is slowly deflating under the devastating weight of prepubescent humans. Is this what the world has come to?

I remember a time when I was praised for being Miley’s Wrecking Ball. I was the supreme queen of the inflatable bouncy toys of Christian Party Rental.

But no. “Wrecking Ball was so 2013,” I hear everyday. I am just like the pool of rubber duckies at a carnival: irrelevant and forgotten.

Maybe I should invest in some plastic surgery so I can turn into a Trap Queen bouncy house, or maybe a You Can’t Feel Your Face ride.

Until then, I will be staked into the ground, hosting a variety of sexual and respiratory diseases, smelling strongly of old fish.

Girls just wanna have fun, but as an outdated bouncy toy, I do not remember the last time I was having fun. My life is the climb. I can almost see it. That dream I’m dreaming. My faith is shaken. It’s the climb.