Poetic Justice

One of the routines I pull with the kids is getting fake hurt with a hanging rubber ball in the climber. The kids will pull back the ball and let it go at full speed. I put my hands over my face and pretend that the ball smacked me uber hard in the noggin'. I'll fall over screaming. The kids fall over screaming, but in laughter. It's a pretty popular bit.

Today a child came over to me with a smile on his face. "Peter, I've got to show you something!" I'm thinking "It's probably a bug, he's only three." He says, "Stop here!" It was in the trajectory of the ball. "Oh," I think. "I get it."

He pulls back the ball. BOOM!! I go down. Huge laughter. I'm just surprised at the way he played into the bit, by pretending to show me something.

We do the routine two more times. After the third time of falling down, a kid came up behind me and asked a question. I turned around to talk to him really quick.

I turned back . . . and was slammed in the face for real by the ball. I was down screaming real bloody murder, the kids were screaming in laughter.

Papercuts -- "Future Primitive"