Grab a Sticker and Run

It’s 9 AM on a cloudy morning in Indianapolis and the bus crew is watching a class of elementary school children do calisthenics to the musical sounds of fruit smoothies being blended. We’re at the headquarters of Angie’s List, whose employees are hosting the bus and selling the smoothies as a fundraiser for Washington Irving Elementary School.

Once the calisthenics are over (part of a program with FitCity in Indy) the kids line up to climb our bouldering wall. At least, they don’t so much line up as bunch all together in a wriggling, squirming, excited jumble of crazy kid energy. And after climbing the wall with varying degrees of success, they proceed to scoop up any and all of our free goodies, recognizing, with the wisdom of youth, that anything free is automatically awesome.

It’s a laid back event for the bus crew, with nothing much for us to do besides making sure the kids climb the wall and not each other, and that no one ends up on the roof. Once the kids line up and march back to class, the moment for which we have truly been waiting arrives. We get to slide down the fire pole.

Angie’s List has their headquarters in an old fire house, complete with an old fashioned fire truck which they purchased on Ebay, and a gen-u-ine fire pole right down the middle of the office. We dust our hands with a bit of baby powder to prevent friction burns and each of us, including Emanuel, take turns sliding down, a-hootin’ and a-hollerin’ all the way. I find that if you leap onto the pole with a bit of momentum you reach the ground in a lovely, dizzying spiral.

It is definitely a blast, and something else I can check off my life list.

Christi