Hell: Soft Play

Something Dark & Evil lurks within.....

Due to various mental issues, yes this girl has issues, it's rare that i leave the house on my own let alone avec l'enfants.  So imagine the grand masochistic mood I must have been in when last week, whilst The Husband was away, I decided to afflict the torturous idea of going to soft play.  If there is a hell on earth, it looks like soft play.

Granted it took several hours for me to fortify the little mental reserve I possess to leave the house then once at the cash machine, the urge to return home was overwhelming.

Once the game was up and The Spawn realised where we were headed there really was no turning back, resistance would have been futile not to mention bloody noisy.

Now before you all go accusing me of being a judgmental old cow, I'll do two things.  First, i'll agree.  We all judge people be it internally via our sardonic little internal narrators or externally through a bloody big gob.   Secondly, i'll judge myself first.  Yes, I was the nervous weirdo who looked like i'd a) escaped from a mental ward b) like I was insanely and indescribably  uncomfortable.  I was the woman who met nobodies gaze and picked out a table at the edge with my back to all other tables and the play frame in front of me.  I'm the weirdo who looked like she could vomit up a pharmacy worth of Zoloft at any given moment and gouge out her own eyeballs with a ball, from the ball pool.  I was the woman with no partner nor friends.  I was the woman who's lifeline was her phone and her crochet, yes I took my fucking crochet with me.  For distraction.  I was the woman who's heart was going like the clappers and was chewing her inner cheeks to shreds.

So now that's out of the way, there's everyone else.

The place appeared to be soley run by teenagers, all of which still looked terrifically hung over from the night before or perhaps even that morning.  Lucky Bastards.

Glancing around the general female population appeared to have more makeup than actual face who's primary reason for being there appeared to be soley to posture and pose.  Duck lips a-go-go I felt like I was trapped in some vile alternate reality of the bogs and expected them to take selfies every few seconds.

Dads were few and far between taking a similar escape route as mine yet choosing to hide at the very back of the venue, with laptops.  Genius!.  The kids will never find them there!

The place was packed, ridiculously packed with at least one party going on.  This however didn't deter some of the parents allowing babies to crawl through the large play frame area.  I mean really?  There's a baby area for them, the place is literally exploding with sweaty little beasts running rampant and they put babies in their paths?  Needless to say it wouldn't possibly be their fault if the poor little sods got trampled on.

Then there's the 'children' who look like they should be at work, breaking all the rules, squishing the smalls as they cause absolute havoc taking over the place.

You get the parents who appear to forget that they have to actually parent as their little darlings push, shove and force their way through the play frames and then decide to take over the baby and toddler area too which they are clearly too large to be in.  As a parent it's your job to accept the rules of the place and bloody well ensure your little gits are abiding by them.  Other people shouldn't have to tell your children to get out of the baby area.  If your cretins appear to forget how to behave around others, trust me, you really don't want other people like me to remind them.  I will eat your children if they piss me off.  Be a parent, remind them of basic bloody manners around others.

I have a rule.  Under no circumstances will I enter the play frame.  None.  As a child I didn't even like slides. Not to mention i'm fat and also pregnant.  The Spawn for told that as this was The Preschoolers first time on the main equipment they were to stick to him like glue.  This naturally  resulted in The Preschooler brandishing an unnatural brand of courage and trying to 'lose' them so that Thing Two had a full on emotional breakdown thinking she'd lost him.

The other reason I don't go in there is the ball pool, who only knows which kids have had a sneaky piss or a quick mouthful of vomit erupt in there. Grim.

Despite it having been years since we last went (yes, The Spawn are that deprived)  they still have failed to install adequate air conditioning so that the rampant hoards of wilderkinder in their over excited exuberant state all look close to a) vomiting en masse b) passing out or c) entering full bezerker mode.

Looking around you see random little children in floods of tears as their parents issue a backhanded 'you'll be fine, now fuck off and play so I can continue my adult conversation, cup of tea and a danish without you' kind of response when all their child wants is to be reassured that their arm isn't broken or their eye isn't really bleeding.

Other children get rescued from being trampled on, their parents rightfully rant about it to their possee of other adults who accompanied them before once again hurling the little victim right back into the thick of it without sticking around to see they're okay.

I'm trying not to sock watch as I idly wonder if verrucas crunch.  I go to my happy place (Hello Mr Northman, why yes I will lick that Gin off of your....) as I try to ignore the extra shine on the equipment that is actually copious amounts of snot.

I bought a jug of juice as it was the only thing I didn't need to take out a loan to purchase and tried to ignore how the cups were all still wet and avoided sniffing them.  I should have brought Gin.

You disappear to the loo, holding your breath as the stench rises like a miasma threatening to consume you armed with a pack of tissues, because there will be no bog roll.  This you know.

To top it off, to really ensure you realise that this is indeed hell.  You were bad in a past life.  This is your punishment. They turn the music up, so that you can't hear your child cry or scream.  It's not even music.  It's fucking Abba.  Kill me now.  Please.

Thankfully the husband on his shiny steed arrived eventually and thirty minutes later the torturous two hours was up, my purse was so empty it was writing bad poetry to me whilst growing a fringe, we were free!  I could breath again.

I did it.  I took the kids out on my own.  You probably do this everyday.  For me however this is an epic achievement.  I did something normal.  Despite the shaking and the panic, I went and I stayed.