That Time My Mom and I Nearly Drowned in a Pit of Balls

On a scale of enjoying the smell of gasoline to enjoying the taste of gasoline, how much childhood trauma do you have?

It’s a question I like to ask new acquaintances.

There’s no better way to cut the small talk and get right down to the nitty-gritty of life than bringing up childhood trauma. And why not provide them with an impossible measuring guide?

Because suffering is equal parts uncomfortable, comical and confusing.

That’s why it’s traumatic.

I once had somebody answer, “I take my gasoline intravenously,” which was, obviously, the exact right answer.

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, the humans I ask this to will answer correctly, and then they will turn the question on me and say, “What about you? What do you got for trauma, kid?”

And I laugh loud and furiously.

Then I tell them about the time me and my mom almost drowned in a pit of plastic balls.

It was the early 90s, and I was a ripe seven or eight years of age. Chuck E Cheese’s and Mcdonald’s were all the rage for mothers wanting a little coffee break with their friends and a place to toss their children to the wilds of a germ-infested indoor playground.

Mom had taken me to such a place, and I was in heaven.

To be fair, I should note that my mother rarely allowed fast food to enter my body, so these types of playgrounds were a novelty.

Having been born with only one kidney and the dire warnings my urologist gave her in my infant and toddler years, my mom watched my diet with a keen and obsessive eye.

But that day was special. I can’t remember what the occasion was, but does that really matter? Nah. What mattered was that my sugar and salt hampered brain was having a blast.

One minute, I glided down a twirly slide, wondering why the surface was moist. The next moment, the moisture didn’t matter because I was traversing a spider-webbed net to the ceiling of the building.

Life was great!

I’d run over to where my mom was sitting with her friends, you know, to make sure she was watching all this cool stuff I was doing and also to take an enormous slurp of my Sprite and scarf down a few fistfuls of fries, and then I’d be off again.

I raced all around that indoor park, wondering if I could hide out in the overhead tunnel until closing time and then live in this place forever.

Then I spotted the ball pit—a swimming pool filled with colourful plastic balls.

I’ve always been a leap first and look later kind of gal, and this moment was no different.

The force with which I moved those stumpy little legs of mine toward the pit was incredible.

A feat of human engineering, really.

I only realized my mistake as I pushed off the edge of the pool’s lip and began to fall toward my vibrant and spherical demise.

I can’t imagine a playground designer these days sitting around a boardroom table drawing up plans for a new park and saying, “Okay guys, what about this: we make the ball pit so fucking deep that children will actually drown in it.”

“Yes! That is brilliant, Jim. This is why we pay you the big bucks.”

And yet, that was precisely what happened in the glory days of the 1990s.

I dropped into that pit of balls the way my hand plunges into a fresh bag of Hint of Lime Tostitos — with extreme fervour and slightly quivering.

The one good thing about drowning in a pit of balls is that you can still breathe while submerged. One of the many bad things about drowning in a pit of balls is that your brain will immediately think, “YOU’RE DROWNING! DROWNING MEANS WATER! ALL WATER MEANS NO AIR! YOU CANNOT BREATHE!”

And thus, I began screaming for help in between gasping bouts and also crying.

Mom, being a good and loyal caregiver, heard my wails immediately. What they say about a mother’s strength in a crisis is true. Much like the fabled matriarch who lifted a car off her infant child, my 4' 11" tall mother dove headfirst into that disgusting ball pit to save me from certain death.

Death by dramatics.

Maybe it was this specific core memory that burned the idea of my mom as my hero into the ol’ noodle computer.

As my mother struggled desperately to keep her own head above the balls, she grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, not unlike a cat, and dragged me to the side of the pit. However, by the time we managed to get our tiny hands locked onto some firm ground, we were both far too fatigued to pull ourselves out.

With tears of fear and shame about drowning in a ball pit still fresh on my chubtastic cheeks, I felt weary and ready to die right there amongst the red, blue and yellow globes.

Then, an employee casually walked over to where we hung on for dear life and yanked both my mom and me out of our current hell.

We never spoke of that moment again.

Until today.

When I decided to write a story about it.

So you see, my friends, childhood trauma comes in all different shapes and sizes. Sometimes, it’s serious and devastating and impactful.

And sometimes, it’s drowning in a pit of plastic balls.

That is the difference between enjoying the taste of gasoline and enjoying the smell of gasoline.

And intravenous gasoline? Well, that’s a whole other ballgame.

Disclaimer:

When I asked Mom about the ball pit incident, she responded, “What the hell is a ball pit?”

After explaining what I meant by “ball pit” and reiterating the story, she replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But come to think of it, I’ve always hated those ball pits. I get a real uneasy feeling whenever I see one.”

Me too, Mom, me too.