I realized several days ago that my backyard was missing something. The answer came as I sat on my porch swing, surveying the green grass and contemplating a riddle that a friend had included in her most recent email:
What moves ahead without a motor
Without an engine, oars or rotor
Without electricity (battery, wind or solar)
Without wheel, rudder, wing or pedal
Without foot, paw, hoof or saddle?
What takes you forward daringly fast
Without coal, steam, oil or gas
When you’re young you find it fun
When you’re old you watch it pass
And when you arrive on the other side
You wish the ride would last?
“But of course!” I thought, stumbling off the porch swing which I had been rocking with inappropriate gusto. “THIS YARD NEEDS A ZIP LINE!”
What an ideal toy for summer! Or any time there’s not a blizzard! And it certainly filled all the criteria of the riddle, being a hand-held trolley propelled by gravity and momentum.
Standing in the middle of the lawn I looked down the rows of my neighbors’ backyards, all cluttered with boring stationary playground equipment and abandoned toys. The kids were probably inside playing video games and watching TV. I wanted to go over there and share my revelation, but my broomstick was inside. If only each of our yards had a zip line, or we all had one very long zip line, I could zip over for a visit and tell them how amazing backyard ziplines are! I could glide effortlessly over the toy-strewn ground, my robe billowing out behind me.
Feeling inspired, I dashed inside to Google “zip lines” and send a triumphant email to my friend. She thought she could stump me, but she made a mistake thinking Wally the Wizard would fail to guess a fantastic outdoor toy! Won’t be so smug next time, will she?
Actually, the answer to the riddle turned out to be Time. But this did not dampen my enthusiasm for installing a backyard zipline, not in the least! It turns out they are delightfully diverse, so I chose three to put on FantasyToyland.com: the economical Fun Ride Original Trolley Ride, the whopping 90-foot-long 250-lb-carrying Fun Ride Super Z Trolley Ride, and the one in the middle that’s juuuust right like Mama Bear’s porridge: the Fun Ride Deluxe Trolley Ride! This is the one which is now in my own backyard. I get there with the Original Trolley Ride, which goes from my kitchen the trampoline, which is right next to the launching platform of the Deluxe Trolley Ride. This is bad for my morning commute because the trampoline causes me to spill my coffee, so I put up the Super Z from my front door to the commuter parking lot across the street.
My zip lines seem to have had an effect on the neighborhood children like that of a reanimation curse on the undead. They have staggered away from their flashing screens to stare at the wizard zooming back and forth on this futuristic pulley contraption. Once they blinked away the afterimage of god-knows-what-they-were-watching, they were gleefully zipping and zooming the day away. Before long their parents had caught on and installed their own backyard ziplines.
What’s shocked and awed
That once guffawed
The fun and functional zip line?
My riddle-mongering friend when I swooped in to meet her for our carpool on my Super Z Deluxe Trolley Ride!
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