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This Fun Sprinkler Is A Great Fit For Our Chaotic Age
Summer is right around the corner. In case you need more proof beyond looking out your window, Amazon’s constantly updating list of bestselling Toys & Games aptly reflects the changing of the seasons. While a version of the fidget bubble pop fad is still perched at the tippy top of the list, products specifically designed for summer usage are starting to climb. The #2 bestseller is a pool float. In the third spot are water balloons. Also up there is this rather interesting sprinkler device.
Running through spritzing water to stave off the heat has been a popular summertime activity since well before my childhood, presumably dating back to the invention of the hose. But this bestselling sprinkler is different than any of the ones we had when I was growing up. The sprinklers I’m used to are designed pretty much exactly the same as those meant for watering your lawn: They follow a consistent tracking pattering, spraying in consistent bursts as the water mimics the path of the sun, 180 degrees in one direction, then back again. This sprinkler, however, reflects the anarchy of the times in which we live. And it does it with something called wiggle tubes.
I must admit, wiggle tubes is not a term I had heard before. Like the inflatable tube men outside car dealerships, wiggle tubes have no master but randomness. They do not spray water for kids to run through in a predetermined direction; rather, they are spun around by a sunflower-shaped base, flopping along the way and dousing any and all things in their path.
This is the perfect backyard sprinkler for the year 2021. Our collective sense of order has largely been forgotten, and attempts to impose one from on high have resulted in various degrees of failure. It makes sense that this should be reflected in children’s toys. Why should they be made to run through a sprinkler that follows an internal logic, when such a logic is increasingly ostracized to the margins of society?
Chaos reigns supreme. In all likelihood, your children will enjoy that fact by running through this sprinkler much more than you do as you go about your daily life.