The Backyard Beast No One Wanted

About eight years ago, my wife dragged home a secondhand monstrosity: a deluxe, double-tarp trampoline large enough to launch a small circus. It came with netted partitions to keep bouncing children from achieving low-Earth orbit, a backyard NASA program disguised as “fun.”

Fast forward to now: my daughters, fifteen and far too sophisticated for backyard astronaut training, want the beast gone. They imagine chic barbecues, fairy lights, friends lounging with kombucha spritzers—scenes that don’t exactly pair with a faded, sagging trampoline hulking like a rusted Saturn V in the middle of the yard. Dutifully, we tried to offload it. We canvassed neighbors, begged on Facebook’s “free stuff” group, even flirted with Craigslist. The universal response? Crickets. No one wants this backyard dinosaur. And frankly, who could blame them? It’s not a toy—it’s a liability. Let a kid hop on it and you’ll be hosting a neighborhood ER shuttle service, complete with broken limbs and dislocated shoulders.

Denial is over. I’ve stared long enough at its faded tarps, its sun-bleached frame, the sad gaps in its safety net where the gardener hacked through to trim a tree. Whatever curb appeal it once flaunted has been roasted away by the California sun, leaving something closer to a giant lawn ulcer.

So the verdict is clear: I will dismantle it. Piece by reluctant piece, I’ll scatter its remains into trash bins, an unceremonious Viking funeral for the backyard beast no one wanted.