Taming the Monster Ball...When it feels wrong, it’s wrong….

Originally published on FB July 2010...

I just can’t believe what I spent my treasured morning doing...deflating a stupid so called “Bumper Ball”. I am frustrated, annoyed and irritated all at once to think that I should have known better not to buy the stupid toy. But in the store it seems like such a great idea! On the box it said – “Sizzlin’ Cool, Bumper Ball....Bounce! Tumble! RoIl & Spin!” ....well I had imagined my son rolling down my slanted back yard in it and having a blast of a time...of course my reward would be....buying myself some well deserved R&R moments.

Well, I brought it home Tuesday evening. Wednesday all day the ball was on my mind. At the back of my mind a little voice kept saying, this might now be such a practical toy, but another little voice kept saying just try it, it may work out and imagine all the fun Za would have. So when I got home that evening I decided to inflate it and see. By then my son was also curious to find out what this ball was all about...the pictures of the box show a lot of kids on some prairie having a blast with it (not to mention that my reading garden is no prairie, nor does it resemble anything like it!!!) Anyway I was determined to make it work.

All folded up in the box it looked small. Za takes it out of the box and as he starts unfolding it in my living room. I say out loud more to myself than my baby sitter who was getting ready to leave...”It seems big”. As I insert the electric inflation pump I realize that there are 20 little inflation clear socket holes feeding into separate air pockets I have to go through to get the ball fully inflated. There is a sinking feeling in my heart, but I quickly smoother it with my persevering determination. At this point I am more focused on the joy I am imagining for my son having and of course the peaceful moments I am earning myself!

I start filling it with air. After inflating about 4 of the big air pocked I realized the sucker is getting bigger, taking over my living room. No problem, I think, and decide to take it downstairs to my basement living room which has more space. Despite the challenge of trying to fit it through the door then down the flight of stairs and thinking “how will I get it out the door when it’s fully inflated, I continued to inflate anyway when I got downstairs!

It’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger with each air pocket I fill in! I think it was at about the 8th socket hole of the 10 big air pockets when my Son looked at the ball, then at me, then at the ball again and said matter of factly “Its big!” and he walked away to continue playing on my elliptical glider . That did me in. All the determination I had been feeling, despite my doubts just ebbed out of me and I instantly crushed. In its place frustration laced with some anger took root! How could I have put myself in this situation! A second later as I am starring at my handy work, I instantly realized that was not the worst of it...Before I can return it to the store, I now had to deflate it to fit it back into the now tiny box by comparison!!!. It had not been cheap - $53 bucks! New determination fueled by hate of the monster ball was emerging.... It was going back! Za said again “It’s so big” and I calmly turned to him and just said “time for bed”. I tossed the now huge partially inflated red MONSTER ball over the couch were my treadmill was and gave it one meaner look before leaving the room!
Thursday morning, I opened my basement door and it was still there...I don’t know where I expected it to go, but I had hoped by some miracle it would have deflated by itself overnight so I wouldn’t have to deal with it manually – wrong – it was still as huge as the night before.

Friday morning, that’s today, I get my son off to school, then I go for my walk, come back get my coffee and laptop and head for the basement psyching myself to tack the ball. As I sit sipping my coffee I pretend it’s not there but its presence was ominous behind my sofa. This morning, with the quiet house to myself, I should have been reading my book club novel - The Passage. But NO, I now have to deflate the stupid Bumper Ball! As Regis and Kelly come on, I watch them for a little and decide to tackle the monster ball, thinking, I will be killing 2 birds with one stone and making me feel competent again.

As I begin, to my horror, I realize I have to squeeze the hard little inflation air sockets in order to get the air out! After doing bumper bulge I know it will take me forever so I had the brilliant idea of getting my vacuum cleaner to suck the air out...but the tight little socket holes don’t open up when I put the vacuum mouth over them. Back to doing it manually again...I do 2 more and it’s too slow so I just decided to lay on top of the monster ball pockets with my whole body and squeeze 2 sockets at a time. BINGO that seemed to work wonders ...for a while as the air was swished out much faster! Then as I am lying there with my face almost on my carpet l it dawns on me...I am like I am lying on top of two huge breast squeezing the nipples of each to let the air out!!! ...I was comical and ridiculous at the same time so I started laughing hysterically, so hysterically that tears are running out of my eyes. I am alone. I don’t care. And the relief is the monster ball is getting defeated! I also realized that I laughed so I would not cry.

The frustration I had felt for not taking heed to my intuition, judgment and my bad decision-making was still simmering and smoldering within me. I have been here before - with the “dysfunctional” huge sand box in the backyard I bought the beginning of summer and which still does not have sand in because it came with a small impractical square plastic for a base for the sand!! It never keeps the sand in the sand box because every time it rains the sand washes away from the bottom. I think some of the morons who make some of these children’s toys must not have children! My boyfriend called just as I was recovering from my hysteria and I tell him my morning saga. He fell out laughing with me for a while. He knew exactly where I was...he assembled the sand box!

As I sit here finishing this article at 1pm Friday afternoon, with the fantasy of my serene morning now gone, I am still not sure who needed the taming - ME or the MONSTER BUMPER BALL!

Originally published on FB on Friday, July 30, 2010 at 1:51pm

Copyright @ July 30, 2010 (Edited and republished February, 2011) by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA & Brighten the Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.