Welcome to Alice Column, in which Alice Laussade writes stories about things on (roughly) the same day of (roughly) every week, making it (roughly) a column. Got an idea for a column? Start your own blog and write it up, you lazy shit.
There's a shopping center off of Royal Lane and U.S. 75 that I fondly call the "NOOOOOOOOOO" shopping center. There's a Studio Movie Grill, if you ever want to eat mediocre food off a sticky table in the dark while you watch a blurry movie from the comfort of a sticky chair. There's a McDonald's selling Big Macs to people who are cheating on their Paleo diets just after finishing their pretend 15-minute turbo workouts at the nearby 24 Hour Fitness. And -- horror of horrors -- there's Jumpstreet.
See also: Sex Ed the Alice Way: Four Tips for Keeping Your Teenage Daughter Boner-Free Jumpstreet is an indoor trampoline park that intends to be a fun place for kids to work out some energy indoors. Imagine an entire floor covered in bouncy trampoline stuff. Now add well-fed toddlers. If Jumpstreet wasn't expecting a literal river of puke, shit and piss, they don't know kids as well as they claim to.
In addition to the trampolines, there's a bounce house. The last time I visited, employees were frantically racing kids out of the bounce house while I was on my way to the restroom. Inside the restroom, a mother spoke to her child in French. My four years of college French made it easy for me to translate. "Oh, Pierre -- something something tu poo-poo-ed dans le bounce house."
Dammit, Pierre! You shat le bounce house?
Kids love Jumpstreet -- there's no denying that. At any given moment, you'll hear at least one kid saying "THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER." And it is, as far as they know. I mean, what else do they have to compare this with? The last "BEST DAY EVER" for my kid was at Maggiano's when she discovered that some restaurants offer free mints on the way out.
But for adults, Jumpstreet is missing the key ingredients that would be needed for a Best Day Ever to even be considered: booze, crazy Beyoncé boobs, Texas barbecue, Robert Downey Jr. monologues, gallons of surprising water that came out of nowhere, wasabi Doritos, other boobs and car-chase explosions.
Jumpstreet is antibacterial soap and "no shoes allowed." It's signing a waiver that basically says, "Yep. I'm dumb for being here." It's the constant sour smell of sweaty mayonnaise armpits. When you leave, you've lost several IQ points and your give-a-shitter is completely drained. If you last more than an hour here, you have superpowers. I know the creators of Jumpstreet mean well. But much like a big-boobed, well-meaning zombie, even though Jumpstreet starts off all smiles and happytimes, it will still eventually eat your brains.
