Spinner/ iStock
TODAY I PLUNKED DOWN ten bucks in the interest of my husband’s sanity. Mitch works really hard and travels so often I barely know what city he’s in or when he’s coming home, which as you can imagine makes it really hard to have an affair, lol. (Isn’t that what you do: say something hateful and then follow it with “lol” and then it’s all okay?)
The thing is, I needed some new workout pants, having ripped mine this morning when I was switching the storm door with the screen door since suddenly it’s frickin’ 88 degrees here (never mind that last night it was freezing), and besides, isn’t that’s man’s work? Anyway, as I approached Olympia Sports I saw three big signs in the store windows all proclaiming the exciting news: “The Spinners Are Here!”
At first I thought they meant the actual Spinners, that great soul group of the ’70s who sang my all-time favorite dance song (“Working My Way Back to You”), but then I realized that at least some of them would be dead by now, and besides, why would five cool black guys be appearing at a sporting goods store in Maine of all places? So I inquired and found out that once again I am out of the loop. Turns out Spinners are toys, and they are the latest thing. In fact, they’re a full-blown craze! Kids either collect them or trade them, teachers either hate them or love them, and parents either sing their praises or banish them from the kingdom.
A Spinner is a small, 3-pronged plastic thing that looks sort of like an IUD but don’t try using it for that. What you do with a Spinner is spin it between your thumb and forefinger and just watch it go, and that calms you down. Or it’s supposed to. Called a “fidget” toy, it was originally designed to help kids in the classroom with ADHD. Then it went mainstream, and now all kinds of kids want them, and many adults do, too.
But hey, fidget is my husband’s middle name! (Not really, it’s actually Bruce.) So I bought one for him and I have high hopes. Who knows, maybe it will help him relax, if it doesn’t drive him crazy. And I might even get one for myself since this morning my blood pressure numbers were sky-high.
—Andrea Rouda
Andrea Rouda blogs at The Daily Droid.
