The Tubes

At our local zoo (see “Ballad of $13” May 24) we used to have to walk through this cool though somewhat smelly tunnel under a highway to get from the parking lot to the zoo. If you had a child in a stroller you had to carry the child and the stroller down a few steps to get to the tunnel. It was a rite of parenthood. I never minded it. Another rite of parenthood was to take your kids to a McDonald’s Playland. Too often the kids would crawl into those tubes and disappear. And too many times we parents would have to crawl into the tubes to find the child, like some modern day Dr. Stanley pursuing some modern day Dr. Livingstone. Of course Dr. Stanley had not just eaten 4 or 5 Big Macs when he went after Livingstone. The saving factor here, and I’m pretty sure this was by design, was the fact that the grease from the fries made the tube easier to slide through. 

I don’t have the numbers on this, but I’m pretty sure that’s why they don’t serve french fries in prison. I’ll ask the sheriff this week at Rotary.