One day, a rather shy kid from one of the lower grades was interested is taking a spin on the pipe. Since we weren't pipe snobs, we gave the tyke a shot. He was a dirty little moppet, a white kid with a permanent strawberry Kool-Aid stain around his mouth. He was wearing an obvious hand-me-down shirt that was far too big for him. He hooked himself onto the pipe, leaned forward and began to giggle with glee--until mere seconds later, the bell that ended recess rang.
Squealing in panic, the kid struggled to get off the pipe but he was too small and his shirt was too big. One of the older kids told him he's better be quiet, because there would be trouble if this little runt revealed the pipe to the teachers, who obviously not let us play on an exposed, rusty pipe. This vague threat was an effective ploy to shut the kid up, much to our relief.
Inside we all ran, leaving the airborne runt flailing madly (but silently) from the pipe--Superman stuck in a flight pattern. From the window of my classroom, I could see the kid twisting in the wind. It was the perfect angle; the row of us near the window could watch the trial-of-life in the playground while the teacher was oblivious. It took a great amount of self-control not to burst out laughing, something I've never been good at. The more trouble you'd get in for laughing, the funnier the situation would seem.
For a good ten minutes, the same sequence would repeat: the kid would struggle mightily to no avail, then go limp in defeat, only to be reanimated in a furious effort when his energy returned.
Finally, with one mad convulsive effort, the kid slid out of his shirt and plopped to the ground. Gravity had trumped our restraint and the three or four of us who had been watching the whole episode erupted in laughter. Teacher and students alike ran over to the window to see what was going on, only to see a tearful and shirtless little boy trying to extract his tangled shirt from the pipe.
No one got in trouble and to this day, I swear, the kid got himself firmly into that mess without the aid of bullies or peer pressure. My teacher chastised us half-heartedly for not pointing out the struggle earlier but even she had to laugh. Sadly, from that point on, pipe rides were supervised by vigilant playground ladies and we were forced to amuse ourselves with other forms of grounded entertainment.
