The Art of Being Bored

     I had a babysitter (now they would call her a daycare lady) that I went to after school on the days my Mom worked. She had a son my age and a few other kids that she watched. We often played in the basement because my babysitter felt like the TV was a waste of time for kids. She had a linoleum floor downstairs and it was cold! We rolled up some tinfoil we found to make a puck and used two short boards for the sticks to play "hockey". Sometimes I'd make the son play dolls and dress up with me. Other times, when the weather was nice, the babysitter would make us go outside. We would play for a while but there were no bikes or scooters or electric cars to entertain us back then. We would sit under the shade of the lilac bushes, bored out of our minds and hot from the sun. We would look at the clouds and use our imagination to see animals or other shapes in them. We would find clover flowers and suck the nectar out of them and rub dandelions on our necks to see if we were in love!

     We would play yard games with each other, such as Red Rover, Freeze Tag, Duck, Duck Gray Duck and Statues. Statues was my favorite! Here's how we played it:

     The Curator (the person who is "it") spins each player around and around and when they let go, the player must stop in the position of a statue. The Curator then stands somewhere in the yard away from the other players, or Statues. When the Curator has his back turned, the statues run toward the Curator and attempt to touch him. But, when the Curator turns around to face the Statues, they must freeze in their statue position for as long as the curator is looking at them. Though the Curator can approach and investigate the Statues, he must be careful; when his back is turned to any Statues, they may move toward him. If a Statue is caught moving while the Curator faces it, the Statue must return to the starting line (or be eliminated).The goal is to touch the Curator while his back is turned, but don’t get caught mid-run. The first Statue to tag the Curator becomes the new Curator and the game starts again. It's somewhat similar to Red Light, Green Light.

     It used to drive me crazy when my own children would come to me and tell me they were bored. I'd tell them that they don't even know what bored means and that I would give them a chore to do around the house if they were so bored! They were surrounded by toys, games, televisions, Game Boys, bikes, scooters, wagons and swing sets, they couldn't possibly be bored! This poem came to mind when writing this post:

Today is Very Boring: By Jack Prelutsky 

Today is very boring,

It s a very boring day

There is nothing much to look at,

There is nothing much to say,

There is a peacock on my sneakers,

There is a penguin on my head,

There is a dormouse on my doorstep,

I am going back to bed. 

Today is very boring,

It is boring through and through,

There is absolutely nothing

That I think I want to do,

I see giants riding rhinos,

And an ogre with a sword,

There is a dragon blowing smoke rings,

I am positively bored. 

Today is very boring,

I can hardly help but yawn,

There is a flying saucer landing

In the middle of my lawn,

A volcano just erupted

Less than half a mile away,

And I think I felt an earthquake,

It's a very boring day.