Christopher Saint's Humor Column

Well, today I got a piece of canned, artificial, pink, meat-like substance in my email in-box. And this bit of crap informed me that I could "drop 10 years off your [my] body!"

This, naturally, is like a dream come true for me. Ever since I turned thirteen, I've longed to be twelve again. I've longed, with all my heart, to be a scrawny, four-foot-nine kid with no friends and less fashion sense.

Just to give you an idea of how little fashion sense I had, let me describe my favorite outfit to you:

Shorts, usually lime-green (actually, more like puke-green, also, sometimes I would wear dirty jeans), a raggity and semi-clean T-shirt, HUGE socks which I kept pulled all the way up to my knees (and beyond, if they went that high), and beat-up tennis shoes. Also, hair-combing was a ritual that was unknown to me.

I WAS style. I embodied trendy fashion and cutting-edge coolness. I was James Bond in miniature. I liked my chocolate milk shaken, not stirred, darn it. Grass stains on suit pants are such a statement. Oh, and don't touch the hair, it's SUPPOSED to be like that.

Funny thing is: little did I know that I WAS on the cutting edge of fashion. For now, messy hair is in style. I have to say that it's a style I feel very comfortable with. It's like coming home. Sniff. Now I'm all teary-eyed.

What's more, dirty looking jeans are now all the rage! Where were these styles when I was a kid? Messed up hair and dirty jeans; I would have been a fashion GOD.

I would have strutted into the McDonald's playland, and an announcer would have shouted from the ball-pit: "Here comes Phezulio [stage name] stylin' in his newest fashion achievement, which he calls 'Sensuous Earth'. Even though he isn't sure what 'sensuous' means. This man is a fashion GOD!" (Yes, the announcer would have used capital letters too. That's how cool I would have been.)

While we are on the topic of playgrounds, I feel it only right that I should mention that the plastic slides on those things were a form of child-torture.

For some reason, the geniuses who designed the things put all these wonderful, big, metal bolts in the slide. Now, they were rounded, so the bolts themselves wouldn't hurt you if you slid over them. However, they were also the playland equivalent of tesla coils. The combination of the plastic slide (which held enough static electricity to power a small factory) with the metal bolts (which functioned as tiny lightning rods) meant that going down the slide was a similar experience to the electric chair.

You'd get near the tunnel entrance, and your hair would start to stand on end. As you reached the gaping maw of the slide, you would be able to feel the electricity prickling around you, begging for release. You, being an innocent child, had no idea of the agony awaiting you.

Then you'd hop on the slide, ready for a fun, two-second ride down to the bottom. What you would get is a nightmarish plunge into insanity for what seemed like ages, until finally you reached the end and crawled out of the slide, smoking, singed, a hollow shell of the child you once were.

At least, that's what happened to me, the other kids were apparently masochistic. They'd go down the slide again and again, and every time the inside would light up, showing their silhouette in the middle of a flashing ring of lightning, and their screams would echo down the slide.

But when they reached the bottom, they'd hop out, a smile on their faces, say "That was fun!" and go up again for more! And to think that those children represent the future.

Another interesting pastime that I had as a child was playing at a place called Discovery Zone. This place was like a HUGE McDonald's playland. The slides were enormous, the ball-pit was gigantic, and sometimes there were even cool extra things, like a room with a floor full of air that you could bounce on like a huge mattress.

Even the slides were better, far less painful, as a rule. Yes indeed, I really enjoyed Discovery Zone.

I never quite understood the name though. Apparently it was supposed to be a place of learning and fun.

Well, I have to say that I did learn a lot about life. Life is like a playground, in which you can have as much fun as you want as long as you never, ever, run.

That's a rule that never made sense to me. Don't run...but it's a playground! You're supposed to run! How can you play without running? I had always thought of the two as almost inextricably linked.

Another thing that I learned is that stupid people will always be in the way in life. This I learned while trying to make my way from one point in the playland to the other through the plastic tubes that connected the various parts (sure, I could have gotten there by walking around the outside...but where's the fun in that?). Invariably, there was some kid just sitting in the middle of a tube, for no reason, blocking the way.

Sometimes it was some moron who had decided that, apparently, that part of the playground was his. At other times, it was a confirmed dolt who just sat down in the middle of the tube to, say, pick his nose. There was also another kind, the kid who got halfway into the playland, and then decided that it was all too big and scary and had a breakdown. So they'd be sitting there, crying for mommy, who was really much too big to come get them, but ended up doing so anyway. Mommy was caught in that eternal parental paradox half-way between letting go and hanging on.

So I learned that there are always some morons clogging life, kind of like the way cholesterol clogs your heart. The cell-phone talking, left-lane-driving moron is a good example.

Yes indeed, many trends found in childhood are echoed in adulthood. Like the fact that everyone still learns things the hard way.

Time and again, Mommy tells you that if you touch the oven top, you will get burned. But you, in your wisdom, believe that Mom is just restricting your right to touch anything you darn well please. She's suppressing your ambition, holding down your freedom, crushing your idealism! She is the oppressor! Revolt! Revolt!

So you touch the oven-top and sssssSSSS! BURNING DEATH! You cry and get very upset and emit what would be--if one could understand kid-talk--a long string of profanity. But Mom is loving anyway, and she fixes your hurt, and hugs you and tells you it'll be alright. Mommy is wonderful, she is a healing angel, she is mercy embodied in human form...

Until you want to jump off the roof with wings fashioned from trash-bags that is.

"Oh, whatever Mom! Geez. Of course I understand gravity! What I'm telling you is that I've designed these wings to very exacting specifications, utilizing scissors and tape to make the most top-of-the-line personal flying device yet! I even referred to my WWII Airplanes picture book for design tips!"

There she goes again, suppressing your ambition. Here you are, going to strike it rich, corner the market on personal flying devices, retire at age eight (and a half, as you proudly remind everyone possible), and she's BLOCKING YOUR GOALS! Leap, soar, fly for freedom! Give me liberty or give me...a broken leg...

It's a vicious cycle. In the end, you realize that Mommy is really pretty smart, and that she's more like an angel than like Hitler. That is, until you reach the Teenage years...but let's not go there.