The Stair Sled

My sister's family's house is one of those new three-story numbers, which means they have several flights of stairs. Her oldest, Blane, tries to sit and slide down them (who wouldn't?), but he ends up traveling in a series of jarring bumps.

We decided he needed a piece of cardboard to sit on, so I promised I'd watch for one. When UPS delivered a large box &mdash containing my peony painting, no less &mdash I knew I'd found a candidate.

Naturally I couldn't just present him with a square of cardboard. One, I thought he might crush his fingers, and two, a plain square of cardboard? Really? It had the potential to be so much more. Like, say, a made-to-order sled with a built-in handle and requisite sticker-tuning...

Blane's Stair Sled was a success &mdash but too much so. Their stairs are fairly steep, we soon discovered, and the cardboard is really slick. The first time Blane rode it down (just one short section of stairs, mind you), he let go of the handle and basically fell down the stairs to splat on the hardwood below.

His interest promptly waned.

We'll stack pillows at the bottom, his mom and I offered. No sale.

I'll ride with you, his mom said. Blane grudgingly agreed.

It didn't end well.

I tried to ride it down, figuring the engineer who created this death machine had to suffer some injury, but hefty me was too much for the cardboard; it bent the first time I tried to slide from one step to the next.

Methinks some modifications are in order.

The intrepid test drivers agreed to another go, this time down a different section of stairs with a wall of pillows waiting on the landing.

Plans for a slower, less terrifying (i.e. less grandparent-lecture-inducing) Stair Sled 2.0 are already underway.