Memories of Actual Fun

Canberra kids party centrePeople say Canberra isn’t fun. And they’re right, mostly.

When you’re a kid you don’t really notice, because kids make their own entertainment, they don’t go out as such and, like…friends and stuff. Then you get to be a teenager like me, and you can’t wait to go to university in Brisbane and just go completely wild because this place is SO BORING. I think just the act of living is putting me into a coma.

There’s just…nothing for teens to do here. There are only so many times you can go to the cinema, and it’s not like the restaurant/night life is happening. Everyone is in bed by 9pm with a cup and tea and the evening newspaper. It was better when I was a few years younger, I remember. One good thing about Canberra: kids birthday party venues, but don’t ask me why. I used to have birthdays in some seriously cool places, for real. Just imagine climbing frames and fake pirate ships and slides, all the stuff that kids really love. Even if it was once a year, I used to look forward to that stuff. And now I’m old and life is boring. I think there might be a nightclub somewhere, but I’m too young for that. Too old for an indoor play centre. Although I don’t know if they have an age limit, so maybe I could go to relive the glory years.

Yeah, they probably DO have a limit. Wouldn’t want a teenager crawling around inside a colourful pipe and making everyone uncomfortable; fair enough. Still, I have to do SOMETHING or I’m going stir crazy. Maybe I could round up the crew from school and make a trip to Melbourne or something. They must be as bored as I am, and we’re not great friends but there’s no better time to get to know each other a bit better. We could reminisce about the time when Canberra’s fine indoor play centres fulfilled all of our hopes and dreams…and then we grew up. Shared grievances, or whatever.

-Bryce

What ARE the Kids Watching?

indoor play centresThere was an ad on the bus this morning- a new one, and I’d know because my bus ride is an hour long and I tend to notice every inch of the pace- and it was talking about kids watching TV. All red letters and ‘DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR CHILDREN ARE WATCHING??’

I don’t have children, so I know that they’re watching a whole lot of nothing, because they don’t exist. But still, it makes me wonder what these kids could possibly be doing. When I was in school, the worst behaviour problems were those kids who sold ice-cream behind the bike sheds. I never found out where they got it from. Oh, and there was that indoor play centre in Croydon that later got knocked down. Yep, me and Gregory Langwood used to go right up to the top of the climbing frame and eat those little packets of sugar that come with an edible dipping spoon. There was a kid who sold them in the ball pit.

I used to think we were so rebellious, doing that. Like, look at us up here, no parents to tell us that sugar will rot our teeth and spoil our dinner! It was the absolute height of rebellion. Too bad one day one of the centre workers climbed up there and found us sitting there in a pile of wrappers, giggling about nothing. He told the parents and…well, that was the last time they took me there. Whenever Gregory Langwood came to our house after that, all of our activities had to be approved by the parental governors. Look, I’ve never agreed with this, personally…Gregory was the one leading ME astray. I was an innocent victim, caught up in his wiles. I don’t see why I had to be barred from the play centre.

When I do have children, probably in 2026, I’ll be finding some kids birthday party venue in Bayswater (the place in which I live) and they’ll be there ALL the time. Doing what they want. Like real kids.

-Alan