Playground Sociology

We've been hitting the playgrounds quite a bit, so there starts to be a cast of recurring characters. Our favorite playground right now is the one behind the old cemetary. It's kind of a professional scene so there were a few classics to be found there. First there was Superpreggo and her evil Bobbycar-jacking twins. To ease the burden of late motherhood and so far no husband in sight (although the meticulous and very expensive wardrobe hints at a hardworking man behind the scenes) she is always accompanied by her mother whose hair is died in a fiery red. They already claim semi-ownership of Karl's Bobbycar so upon arrival Superpreggo stirs her snotty offspring right towards our red streamliner. Too bad Karl's just a lover not a fighter, but there might be a lesson to be learned and taught soon. Then there are divorco-dad 1 and divorco-dad 2. Both only seen on holidays and alternating weekends. Divorco-dad 1 can barely contain his anger about the whole situation behind his Ray-Bans, so he pushes his daughters really, really hard on the swing and seems to clench his jaw a lot. Divorco-dad 2 is quite the opposite. He can definitely not contain his raging depression, so he tends to solemnly push his son around a tricycle or catatonically watch him have fun in the sand. Then there's multiculti-mom and her dreadlocked Brazilian boyfriend. They have a few kids of different shades, so I'm not sure what the actual makeup of the patchwork is. They have kind of a hostile air about them, probably because multiculti-mom convinced dreadlock-man that all her fellow Germans deep down are really racist and not worth dealing with. Dreadlock-man only smiled once, when older rich couple came by with their adopted chubby African girl, who didn't quite know what to make of the solidarity smile from dreadlock-man. Normally they tend to avoid eye contact with anybody else though, which is really hard, when Karl stands in front of you with his beaming blue laser eyes, fixating you for three, four minutes without blinking.

Yesterday we changed venue though and went to the playground with the small sports park. Somehow we don't know the lay of the land that well yet, because the place was packed with chain-smoking, morbidly obese Russians and their mullet sporting kids (and they mean it, not like the result of a few barbershop hissy fits Karl is sporting). Stereotypes were reinforced right away, when Karl shoveled some sand into some deserted toy bucket. Red mullet boy charged at him, screaming "Mine! Mine! Mine!", immediately accosted by beige mullet boy screaming at him to leave the baby alone, otherwise he'd get some beating he'll never forget. Karl didn't quite get what the ruckus was so he walked and hung out with mercenary boy who was trying to teach him to throw a frisbee.