Floor is lava
Dear Diary. I'm at a house party. I walk into a room. There are a bunch of four-year-olds watching TV. And they're all watching it super-intensely as if what they're watching is a matter of life and death.
On the TV is a man balancing on a dresser table in the middle of a bubbling lava pit. He looks like he's about to fall in at any moment.
"What the fuck are you watching?" I say. Then I realise I've just sworn in front of four kids. But it's okay because the kids didn't hear me. They're all too glued to the TV.
Now on the TV, there's a different man standing on a sofa as the lake of lava around him bubbles and boils. He's about to try to jump onto a chandelier and then swing over to an upturned canoe.
"Daddy, that man could die," says 4-year-old, completely seriously.
I look at the faces of the four children: solemn, scared, and serious. They all think it's real, I realise. They think the lava is real and that the people on the TV are in real danger.
Oh well. Who am I to contradict a child? So I sit down next to the kids and start watching.
*****
Five minutes later, and we're all chanting, "Fall in! Fall in!"
There's a woman forced to do monkey bars over the pit of bubbling lava. But she's struggling. I don't think she has the required upper body strength for this. I bet she wishes she'd done more training at the gym before coming on the show.
"Fall in! Fall in!" we're all chanting (me and a bunch of four-year-olds).
The woman's losing her grip. Suddenly she lets go of the bar and the next moment she's disappeared under the lava. She's properly gone.
"She fell in!" I cry out with elation.
"Yaaaaay, she's dead!" cries 4-year-old.
"She'll just be a skeleton now," I say wisely.
The other kids are celebrating when Girlfriend comes in. "What are you all watching?" she says suspiciously.
"Floor is Lava," I say. "Don't worry, it's completely suitable for kids. No one really gets hurt."
"What did you say Daddy?" asks 4-year-old.
"I said, no one really gets hurt. The lava's fake."
4-year-old thinks for a moment. Then he says, "I knew it."
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