Throughout all of human history, we’ve gotten to the bottom of some of the most esoteric mysteries our universe has to offer. What happens when you split the atom? What happens when a star dies? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
All curious enquiries that we went to great lengths to figure out. But, several millennia on, and one nuance remains as uncharted as ever; what or who is the spiritual enabler of male shenanigans? Perhaps if we stare intensely at every frame in the TikTok below, the answers will become clear, but let’s face it; we’re just here to watch a grown adult face the consequences of his pronounced silliness.
Posted by @adreger18, the 17-second video above is a Renaissance painting in the making; a gaggle of lads shuffling around a Menards (which, for those of you not in the know, is a hardware store, which is of course the natural habitat of said lads). One of them can be spotted perched on top of a children’s swing set, complete with a slide designed very specifically for small children, and it doesn’t take a fortune teller to predict what’s about to happen, or how poorly it’s going to go.
Indeed, not half a second into this man’s journey down the slide does it completely detach from the rest of the playset (which, importantly, is on an elevated display), sending the man crashing to the ground wrapped in a large, yellow, jagged, uncomfortable package.
This gag was preceded by an 11-second edit of the same video, wherein it constantly cuts to the moment that our Jackass wannabe breaks the slide and hits the floor, all while text reading “subtle foreshadowing” lingers near the top of the screen. The joke, of course, is that the entire game is given away multiple times over.
Commenters had absolutely no trouble believing that this incident took place in a Menards, even if such a thing would be most at home in a Walmart (“Walmart behavior in the Menards, SMH lol”). The highlight, however, is Addy’s confirmation that this little stunt earned the culprit a full ban from this particular Menards, which will presumably not interrupt his day-to-day too severely. Sure, it’s one less place for him to migrate to for the summer, but surely there are other hardware stores nearby to fill that brand new gap in his life.
And perhaps the cost-versus-penalty had already been weighed in his mind, ultimately leading him to take his chances with getting kicked out than pay the $2410 to purchase the playground and then go down the slide. After all, that’s quite a bit to pay for only so much playground. According to Angi.com, the average playground cost clocks in at just over $500, with $1500 being the high end, although these numbers can be greatly influenced by factors like DIY-versus-professional labor, and how many pieces of equipment are involved with the playground.
All we’re waiting for now is confirmation that the detaching slide is actually a feature of the playground rather than a structural mishap, and that the high price is due to this playground secretly being a carnival thrill ride. Totally worth the Menards ban, in that case.