A boy, wearing a green hat which is shaped like a firefighter’s hat, is playing on playground equipment, and yells to his mom.  “Mommy.  I want to go back home so I can put on my [did not catch] costume!”

Mom affirms the child’s wishes.  “In a few minutes.”  I assume she would go home shortly anyway, but it’s good that she’s in accord with her kid.

Green hat kid is with a friend.  They run around the tunnel, which is apparently their gateway — or the hatted kid’s gateway — in and out of “Mushroom Land”.

His friend walks in, and announces that he is now in “Mushroom Land!”

“No you’re not.  You just walked out of Mushroom Land!  You go through there to enter Mushroom Land!”

I identify with this gate-keeper.  There have to rules and designations of what constitutes “Mushroom Land”. Otherwise, I’d be able to claim I’m in Mushroom Land right now.

But where does this “Mushroom Land” come from?  Retro-Mario Bros. fans (yes, you’re getting old — we can now call “Mario Bros” “retro”)?  Is there a piece of literature they enjoyed the other day set in “Mushroom Land”?  Or do they just enjoy the sound of “M” running against “ush” and then finished with that “Oom”?

Less likely, but a possibility — they picked up on older siblings’ drug habits.  I suppose this kid will move out of his “Mushroom Land” phase in a fortnight — heck!  It might just end when he puts on his costume when he gets home — but may just return in, let’s see… I peg him as age 7, so… he’ll return to “Mushroom Land” in, like 7… 8 years?

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 9:51 am and is filed under On the Ground. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.