Total D-Bag

The gardening thing was right near the REI outdoors shop, so we wandered in. The place is ridiculous. There's a full jungle complete with waterfall outside, a huge fireplace, three floors of stuff, and a 60 foot freestanding climbing structure.

For those of you that remember that far back, I took rock climbing at school freshman year and loved it, but haven't done it for a very long time. There's a women's intro to climbing class on Monday, so we signed M up. If she likes it, I would totally love to get back into it.

Unlike a lot of the other people who were in my class, I don't really have much interest in climbing outside. I just like the act of climbing and the exercise. Everyone used to do these day trips to the 'Gunks at school and I never felt like it. On the other hand, rapelling off of the football stadium was kind of awesome. I don't know. Maybe I'll change my mind. What I DO know is that climbing gear is expensive, and that's not somewhere I want to allocate funds right now.

Anyway, that's not the point of this story. After we signed M up for the class, we took a look at the climbing structure and there were a few people going up it. One guy (on the wall at the top left of the photo) was there with his kids (maybe 10 yrs old or something), and he was going up a path while the kids watched. He had some trouble and tried an easier route. Back on the ground his kid asked if he would like it and the dad said "No. You're not ready for it. I was barely ready for it". Dude. That's just some messed up parenting. What the hell is the problem with letting the kid give it a shot? The kid is probably going to do BETTER than you. This is what kids DO. It just pissed me off. It pissed M off too.

Photo by M.