(This story is Part 3 in the Tramp-Amp-Oline Saga. The other parts will follow.)

One spring evening, after karate, we went to Mike’s house because it was Kung-Fu-Friday, but since days were longer now, we figured we could play on the tramp-amp-oline for a while. So Joe, Mike, me and Amanda ran crazily across the field towards Tramp-amp-oline, flailing our limbs madly shouting nonsense.

“Tramp-amp-oline!” I shouted.

“Tramp-bop-oline!” said Joe.

“Zamp-bop-o-zeen!” said Mike.

Upon climbing onto Tramp-amp-oline, we played our favorite game, Flop-Like-A-Fish, where one person sat in the middle, and two others bounced around the parameter, while the person in the middle flopped and bounced erratically, and randomly spouted crazy talk and laughter, just like how the instructions that come with the trampoline explicitly tell you not too do.

This was wall great and fun and good times, but still we thought we could one-up it somehow.

“How can we make better?” we collectively asked.

“Three people bouncing!” we all said at once.

So, we all climb on the tramp-amp-oline, just like how the instructions explicitly told us not to do, and I was one of the ones bouncing around the perimeter. The tramp-amp-oline really wasn’t that big, so with three people you had to pick your shots, so to speak. It wasn’t obvious where you would land, and you had to think about that and adjust yourself accordingly.  On one jump, when I had reached my zenith, I realized that there was no was that I was going to land on the tramp-amp-oline. I somersault, then spin in the air, because I needed a good ukemi now more than ever.

I hit the ground hard, about ten feet away from the tramp-amp-oline. Then I skipped like a stone, and landed three feet away from the point of initial impact.

I saw stars, and the Technicolor ring. The ring didn’t last, but the stars did.

I was looking up at the tramp-amp-oline, as my chin was still tucked. Everyone stopped. Joe looked over and shouted:

“Oh my God! Cooooooooooooons issssssssss deaaaaaaaaaaaaad!”

Joe, Mike, and Amanda climb off the tramp-amp-oline and run over to me, their arms flailing wildly.

“Can you get up?” asked Amanda.

“Yeah,” I told them. “But I don’t want too…I think that I’m going to lay here for a while…take it…easy…”

They all walk to leave me be, as per my request. Mike stops, points, and laughs.

“Come here! Come here!” he shouts.

It had rained earlier, and the ground was still kind of soft., which caused my initial impact to leave a Coons-shaped crater in Mike’s lawn.

“It’s like the cartoons!” we shouted, as we inspected the hole.

We all looked at each other.

“I think we should go inside,” said Amanda. This is the only useful thing Amanda has ever said in any point of her life.

Then we went inside, and I lived to see another day.