This story isn’t about the Paul Simon song, but it does involve short people.

Many years ago, when my son was turning five, some jerk got him a Slip ‘n Slide™ for his birthday. I call this person a jerk because toys like that create a lot of work for me.

“Daddy! I wanna play wif my slippy slide!”

“Daddy wants to lie in the sun and drink beer. Surely you can see the dilemma this poses for me.”

“DADDY!” [Insert evil look from wife supporting child’s desires here]

Crud.

Put down beer. Get up from comfortable lawn chair. Unwrap package and sort out all component parts. Unravel hose. Find a clear spot in the yard. Lay out cheap plastic contraption. Find hammer. Drive in spikes. Hook up hose. Look at “bumpers” that are supposed to be inflated by mouth and say, “Screw that.”

Turn on hose that is not, much to my children’s chagrin, pumping out bath temperature water.

Return to comfortable lawn chair. Pick up beer. Say, “There you go.” Feel like a good dad.

Five-year-old boy runs. Five-year-old boy jumps onto plastic piece of crap. Five-year-old boy lands onto plastic piece of crap with a grimace of pain. Five-year-old boy slides a pathetic three feet. Five-year-old boy commences nuclear meltdown.

Father sees peaceful afternoon vanish.

“DADDY! This thing sucks!”

Yes, my son was already using the word “sucks” at the age of five. I blame modern society.

Again, crud.

Put down beer. Get up from comfortable lawn chair. Commence Y-chromosome-gifted problem-solving mode, also known as “Daddy fix.”

Being that the meltdown had not yet run its course, I was motivated to come up with a solution quickly. I looked around the yard and spotted a hula hoop. I grabbed said hoop and told my son, “Come over and sit here,” pointing at the beginning of the plastic piece of crap. He did, and I handed him the end of the hula hoop. “Hang on to this.”

I dug in my heels and said, “Now get ready to let go.” He nodded.

I heaved the hula hoop and he started to launch down the Slip ‘n Slide, letting go at precisely the right moment, and hurled down the end of the contraption, over the non-inflated bumpers, across the water-slickened grass, and crashed into the fence.

Daddy strong.

“Holy shit! Are you okay?” Well, maybe I can’t blame society for my son’s language.

“Again!” he said.

“No!” my two-year-old daughter interrupted. “My turn!”

I then realized that in flinging my son we had created bends in the hula hoop, and that its future hula-ing ability was irrevocably pooched. I apologized to my daughter for ruining her hula hoop and she looked at me like I was speaking Klingon. She sat down at the beginning of the slide, reached up for the hoop, and said, “Go, go, go!”

Then I realized something else: my afternoon just got booked solid.

The next day I realized one final, painful thing: working out at the gym does not train all the muscles involved in flinging kids down a Slip ‘n Slide.