a way out

This is the second sewer in two weeks that my children have worshipped. We might have to make it an official Miller ritual. Every playground we go to, scope out the drain, then scream into it for fifteen minutes straight. Who needs a frigging jungle gym anyway? Swings. Pah. Slides. We spit at them. We'll take a mangy old sewer any day of the week. Right kids? Eh? What does Stella hope to find down there? A kindred spirit? An easy escape? This is it, honey. There ain't no way out. You gotta get through it is all. She'd tell you maybe, if she could articulate it, that maybe she just likes to hear the sound of her own voice, her usually piercing ear-splitting shrieks magnified into hell's bellows from echoey damp walls slick with ancient slime, oh the profound joy. To be young again instead of THIS close to forty, willing myself to appreciate the foundling spring sunshine on my face just a little bit more, as if I could. Kids, you always find new ways to inspire me. Now get your ass in the bathtub!