2/18/19, Breaking Point

Hi Everyone,

I hope you’ve had a great week and Valentine’s Day turned out just the way you wanted it to!!!

I’m always fascinated by new forms of our social phenomena and culture. And since I spend time in California, I’m never sure if some new form of entertainment or behaviour is particular to California—which is not the norm!!—-or if a trend has spread to the rest of the country. California has a culture all its own.

The last new ‘wave’ I heard about were “Gender Reveal Parties”, where the couple discovers their unborn baby’s sex at the same time as their friends. Apparently that’s a common thing now, although I’d never heard of it before. That was news to me!!! Personally, it seems to me that it lacks intimacy, and turns a very private moment into a major social event. Learning a baby’s sex with your entire bowling team somehow lacks intimacy to me, but it seems to be a major trend!!

Now I’ve heard of another new trend—- Break Rooms or Destruction Rooms—- It’s apparently new but common in California—I have no idea if the rest of the country is setting them up too. It’s a form of ‘entertainment’ or stress release where the people who run them set up a room with old out of date computers and large television sets, plates, bottles, and assorted breakable objects. You rent the room for an hour for somewhere around $100.00. They are supposed to give you protective clothing, like some kind of protective cover all, goggles (gloves might be a good idea), they hand you a sledgehammer and some other form of ‘weapon’, like a baseball bat, and tell you to have a ball, and you can destroy whatever/everything that is in the room. Everything!!! There’s lots of broken glass, so you need to be protected. And you get to take out all your hostilities and aggressions, and your frustrations, and get to break everything in sight. My youngest son is very adventuresome and loves doing new things—he recently went to feed a giraffe and loved it—-so he drove an hour to where several of these Break Rooms were set up, and he thought it was an amazing way to let off steam. He’s normally not a destructive person, and he said it was kind of daunting at first, and then he decided to get into it and slammed away. He took his girlfriend who cautiously broke a few CD’s at first, and then got into it, and hammered a TV to bits. It’s certainly a novel and different form of entertainment and relaxation than swimming or taking a painting or yoga class or roller blading. But whatever works!!

In these days of high stress jobs, high pressure corporate life—no matter where you are on the ladder, or what kind of job you have, we all have daily stresses—just calling the phone company to report your phone out of order, or being put on hold for an hour when you try to call your insurance company—–this is certainly one way to deal with your frustration and hostilities. And you can channel it all in one safe room, break everything in sight, and go home to relax and watch TV. So that’s the latest trend I’ve heard about.  As a business enterprise, it’s intriguing too. All you have to do is get a bunch of old non-functional equipment, a sledgehammer, a baseball bat, set up a safe room, and collect a hundred dollars for people to come for an hour and break everything.  Amazing.

A while back, laser tag was new, and I gave a couple of really fun parties taking over a laser tag place, with my friends on teams, and they went nuts playing war, and ‘killing each other’ for a couple of hours. It always fascinated me that the meekest people became the most intense and the fiercest in laser wars. It was really fun though.

So if you’ve had a tough week, and you’ve had it with your kids and your boss, stood on line for two hours at the DMV or the post office, or couldn’t get anything done that you wanted to do…..head for a Break Room, and hammer away.

I occasionally have slow or hard days writing, where it just doesn’t go the way I want it to, or I get interrupted all day, or the words just won’t come….but I will NOT be taking a hammer to my typewriter!!! The Break Rooms provide controlled destruction—–definitely a novel idea.

Have a great week—-and some fun!!! love, Danielle