Despite underlying fears of my children contracting the flu and dying, we went to the trampoline park on Saturday. (Reminder: There is no hygge with small children in the winter, only survival.)

If you’re unfamiliar with a trampoline park, as I was when we first moved to the ‘burbs, it’s basically a giant warehouse with trampolines all side by side. This specific trampoline park has an hour on Saturday where kids who are only under the age of 5 are able to bounce without worrying about a bigger kid flying into them and breaking their tiny spines. (I am a lot of fun and have no anxiety at all about my children experiencing things in the outside world!)

Anyway, as we were bouncing, I noticed a kid on the trampoline beside us, bending over and coughing into his hand. But his hand wasn’t close to his face, like you would do with a regular cough. It was below his mouth, like he needed to catch something. 

Friends, I knew that cough. You know that cough. 

We all know what was about to happen. It’s like watching…

• someone pulling the pin out of a grenade.
• the water recede from the beach before a giant tsunami.
• field mice running from the fields before the fire engulfs them.

There are many more analogies I could make here but what I’m saying is: It’s instinctual. You see that movement and you either run far, far away or you jump on that grenade for the sake of everyone around you.

This mother? Not so much. When the kid coughed the first wave, she gestured to one of the attendants and asked if he had a paper towel and pointed to her kid. But before the attendant could even act, loads and loads of vomit spewed forth from the mouth of the little kid. Just everywhere. So much vom.

It was impressive, really.

And the mom just stood there while the kid puked in the middle of the trampoline park.

It was … not the correct approach.

AND THE MOM AND SON THEY STAYED ON THE PUKE TRAMPOLINE FOR THE NEXT 30 MINUTES. NEXT TO THE PUKE.

It was very weird. Why didn’t they leave? As my friend put it, “It’s not a murder scene. Why are they still there?” And they stayed while the poor teenage workers cleaned up around them. Eventually, after a longer time than was normal, they left. 

It’s a large enough trampoline park that we could bounce far away from the puke, but not before the workers put brightly colored cones all around the puke-o-line.

You know what my 2-year-old loves? Brightly colored cones. She ran straight towards them as though she were a raccoon who spotted a shiny object. I had to bounce / sprint after her at least ten times, grabbing her right before she slid into the puke-o-line. 

So, we moved to the foam-pit area which was even more stressful as Kit would stay in the foam and wouldn’t get out even though there was a line of impatient kids. So I would have to go retrieve her and get stuck myself. It was so anxiety-producing, we decided to back to the trampolines with puke. (At this point in this piece, I’m curious why we didn’t leave. But if you pay for an hour, YOU BOUNCE THAT ENTIRE HOUR.)

It was only an hour but felt like many more.

But then Kit took an extra-long nap, due from being tired out from all the running towards puke and defying me in the foam pit (and possibly contacting the flu). And I got to read a little bit in peace. Finally, hygge.

So was it worth it?

Yes, yes it was.