Taking My Child To Kids Indoor Play Park Was A Harrowing Experience

Over the weekend, my wife and I decided that it was high time we burned off some of my toddler's excess energy by taking him to an indoor play park at the mall.

My wife assured me this place was legit, as she had been there a few times before with our little guy, but this was the first time I had seen Go Playland up close and personal.

It passed the cleanliness test by my germaphobic eyes (or as much as a place crawling with kids can, while others can hardly say the same).

With my phobia in check, I thought, "What the hell, let the kid have some fun!"

Big mistake.

We walked in and were greeted by two friendly workers at the front gate, a swinging white picket fence that had seen better days after what I assume were years of abuse at the hands of unruly children.

After getting past the front-line employees, however, there was no adult supervision beyond that point besides disinterested parents.

It was basically the childhood equivalent of Thunderdome.

The entire complex is wrapped in a foam road meant for the numerous tricycles that lie strewn about the room, made for rambunctious kids to ride on and wreak untold havoc.

A group of much older kids were recreating scenes from Mad Max as we waded through the river of unsupervised masses to find a place to sit down.

Unfortunately, the kids in question had no intention of slowing down, so my poor son had to play real-life Frogger while trying to get to the slides.

He's a good walker for his age, but he was not prepared to dodge all the high-speed traffic, so I had to put my "dad reflexes" to the test and save him from certain concussions a couple of times.

After sliding more times than I would have liked to, my son clumsily waddled over to the ballpit, which is when the horror amplified.

Demons disguised as children were taking turns doing atomic elbows off of a support beam mere feet from where my son sat playing with the balls, blissfully unaware of the bodies flying at him attempting to crack his skull open.

Again, not a parent in sight.

We finally made our way over to what I can only describe as a trampoline with toddler-sized square holes in it, as my son made several feeble attempts to walk on it without obliterating his ankles.

This lasted for about an hour before I finally had enough and made an executive decision: we were getting Chick-fil-A from the food court and then heading home.

Indoor play areas are pretty sweet in concept, but in execution they leave a lot to be desired.

Throw in apathetic parents letting their kids run amok, and you have yourself a recipe for disaster.

Maybe you swear by your local indoor play area and your kid loves it; it's not for everyone, but there has to be a market for them if they're so prevalent these days.

As for me and my kid, I am counting the days until youth sports can begin in earnest. That way, I can experience a whole different kind of parental stress.

Kids, you gotta love 'em!