"Don't you think those youngsters deserve a regulation tetherball?"

Our neighbors recently erected a tetherball pole in our joint backyard. You may remember tetherball as the grade-school game involving a ball tied or “tethered” with a long rope to a pole that seemed about 20-feet tall at the time, but was probably closer to 6-feet. Two people played at a time standing on opposite ends of a circle, and the object was to hit the ball back and forth with the rope wrapping around the pole a little more each time one person missed until it wrapped as far around the pole as it could and bounced back in the opposite direction. At this point the player with the coordination of a newborn elephant lost and was subject to constant ridicule until all who witnessed the game forgot, usually at the end of recess. Tetherball was always one of my favorite grade-school games, partially because one game could last all recess. Boredom was one of the leading causes of missing the ball, at least until one player figured out how to hit it on an angle so the ball would be high above the opponent’s head each revolution, quickly subjecting him to shameful taunts. Tetherball was much better than foursquare, which tends to attract cheaters with their overhands and their carries, or worse moves like typewriters and skyscrapers. Anything was legal on playground foursquare as long as you said the technique’s name first. It also helped if no adults noticed.

Abbie loves this new tetherball equipment. Not that she can play tetherball with it yet, which is probably just as well since I’d smoke her if she tried. She loves to just grab the ball. When I take her outside, the tetherball is the first thing she runs to, assuming that no dogs are doing anything interesting and she hasn’t noticed the ever-enticing rocks yet. She will then hunt down the ball and grab hold with both hands, even if the neighbor children happen to be playing with it at the time. The neighbor children usually cooperate quite nicely with her little infatuation and stop the ball from moving so she can grab it, a generous action that doubtless reinforces that “me” complex she enjoys. Once she lays her mitts on the ball, she just basically stands still. You might think that she’d do something with this ball she likes so much like, oh, I don’t know, throw it, but she just holds the ball with both hands while standing motionless except for the occasional vocalization like she’s a 25-pound lion proclaiming dominance over her captured prey. There’s an axiom that if a dog chasing a car ever caught it, he wouldn’t know what to do with it; the same principle applies here as she loves hanging objects, but hasn’t thought far enough ahead to consider what she’d do if she ever grabbed one.

While walking with her through a store, I’ll occasionally notice that something has grabbed her attention and sucked her face so dry of all expression that you’d swear she were watching a reality television show. I’ll turn and invariably find something dangling nearby. Advertisers love to use displays featuring dangling objects probably because they know how effective they are at attracting children, and in turn their parents (“Wow, five seconds ago I wasn’t even thirsty, but now I’m dying for the taste of this curry-flavored soda!”). Balloons are also popular with children and advertisers, particularly when they have a promotion to publicize like special financing available or free toilet paper with the purchase of bran flakes. I’m pretty sure that advertisers are the same people who cheated the worst at foursquare in grade school.