Lost and Found: Stuck in Playground Hell


Crowded, unsanitary, stinking, noisy, and dimly lit. Despite the inhuman conditions described, many people were sent to the location described every day until many were taken down by 2010, and more were scrapped during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite how unpleasant they could be, many children flocked to them. Of course, I’m describing Chuck E. Cheese’s Skytubes. I’m not going to pretend I was any better than them – I kept begging to go to them until my height became a liability.

It was one of those years in my childhood that my father was home and not off in a desert on the other side of the planet. Not that I knew yet that he would soon be leaving and would be doing so often. Only a year prior at most did he enter my life. I know this because at that point in time my then-unmarried mother only recently returned from Kuwait to live with me again. Separation should have been no stranger to me.

One lucky day, they took me to a place that would continue to be one of my favorite places for a solid decade: Chuck E. Cheese’s. I was a few months shy of 3 years old and still mute, but a normal enough child besides that. And like any normal child, after I used up all my tokens, I made a beeline to the Skytubes. My parents sat at a table nearby and talked about whatever adults talk about. Despite how unsanitary they can be at times, Skytubes have always been special in my eyes. They fulfill the urge to be tall and to hide in a hole and crawl through tunnels like a hamster, all while being brightly colored and attractive to the artistic eye. Most importantly, there are no adults. Entertainment doesn’t get much better than that. That was my opinion when I was a little older, but I imagine at no time in my life did seeing them make my heart beat faster than the very first time.

I crawled into the elevated candy-colored catacombs, and it was just like entering another world. What light broke through the tunnels colored everything inside the same color as the structure itself. Children’s laughter echoed off the many walls together with the smell of plastic. There was even a car endpiece, from which you could steer a nonfunctioning wheel and look out at the entire building. I knocked on the windshield until I got my parents’ attention. They were in the middle of digging in on pizza and wings, but they returned my large smile and waved back at me.

Just as quickly as I had run to the Skytubes, I lost interest in them. Tunnels and a shaky car can only hold a toddler’s attention for so long. One knee in front of the other, I made my trek to the exit of the playground. I crawled and crawled but gained no ground. In fact, it seemed like no matter which turn I took, I ended up back in the same place. The color of the lights became uncanny. Children’s screams could be heard all around me, and the smell of plastic made my stomach turn. And no matter which way I went, I kept seeing that damned car and no exit. It felt like I was doomed to crawl in circles in this oppressive environment for eternity. Even worse, I felt as if I’d never see my mother for eternity. All alone in a red-orange tunnel, forsaken by Chuck E., I sat and cried.

Or so I thought. But in the midst of my preschool melodrama, an older girl approached me. She was about 6 or 7, her blonde hair tied into pigtails.

“Are you okay?”

I looked up at her, my sniffling out of my control. But what toddler can control their emotions?

“Hi! Do you need help?” She restated her question, perhaps remembering it’s good manners to greet people before you start asking questions.

I very much did need help, but I wasn’t one to talk no matter how polite my conversation partner was being. Huge wet eyes continued staring at her blankly.

She gave me a strange look, and hesitated before she spoke her next words with conviction. “Hold on. I’ll get someone.”

She went away, looking as if she had a great responsibility placed on her shoulders. I was alone again, and my sobs continued. No other child tried to approach me. They were likely looking at me strangely and felt a little irritated I was ruining the fun atmosphere, but I couldn’t see that with my head down and knees to my chest.

Who knows how she did it, but what I saw when I next lifted my head made me stop crying instantly, more out of shock than joy. Barely fitting in the tunnels meant for kids, in a position that now makes me feel even suffocated to recall, the man that would become my father had come to get me. My mother, so small the military almost didn’t want her, would have been a better fit – but she was very pregnant with my twin siblings. The short discussion my parents had – possibly with that random child - before my father came to get me must have been a real knee-slapper.

Regardless, despite his height and weight, and despite all the other adults who were certainly watching, my father came to get me. After looking at him like he was crazy to be in here for a second, I felt a wave of relief wash through all 2 and a half feet of my body. He told me to follow him, and miraculously he carved a path through the unending loop. That was a kind of magic only big kids have.

For all his hard work and sacrifice, once we managed to leave the maze, he earned the sight of me scuttling straight to my mother and hugging her. He received no words of gratitude from me, though he should’ve expected it would be a thankless job from a perpetually taciturn toddler. I won’t say he gained nothing – that had to earn him points with my mother. But from me? Nothing he could see.

Despite this, this small event is a memory I’ve carried with me my entire life, from an age many people forget about. It’s the oldest memory I have of my father. Along with that, that one kind girl that bothered to ask if I was okay will also stay in my memory forever, and I’d be surprised if she still remembered what she did for me.

The event didn’t ruin elevated playgrounds for me. I continued to go to them whenever I could, having a blast for about 5 minutes before the magic was gone again. However, from then on I kept in mind a very important lesson: maybe try every turn before freaking out and crying in a corner. Better yet, just take the slide.


Notes & Commentary