We just couldn't get it up

I have a bone to pick with the Smithsonian Institute. No, it's not over their American Indian gift shop museum, or the fact they have ignored my proposal for replacing that dull merry-go-round on the mall with something more exciting. It’s because they refuse to give me a little red kite.

Smithsonian officials were happy to give the kites to every little kid who toddled through the Kite Festival a few Sundays ago. The sky around the Washington Monument was speckled with hundreds of them. But they would not give one to me. "These are for the children," the lady said.

I can appreciate the government's concern, about giving me a kite. We ill-adjusted single people might use them for drug running and contraception. Still, I wanted a kite, so I knew what I had to do: Borrow someone's kid.

The first parents I asked were not too keen on the idea, as was evidenced by their briskly striding away from me. The second pair laughed at me nervously before edging away. While I was busy alarming families, my two friends managed to persuade a festival volunteer to slip them one when the kite-police weren't looking.

Ah, sweet success! We tied on the string, launched the kite and it flapped around about ten feel in front of us before diving into the ground. All over the mall, grade schoolers were successfully tossing their kites into the air and flying them into trees, but we couldn't get ours high enough even to tangle up with another kite.

This reminds me of the time I tried to learn to ski, and little kids zipped by me as I planted my face repeatedly into the snow. There they had an unfair advantage, with their low centers-of-gravity and bendy bones. But I couldn't figure out how they were all flying kites better than we were.

Finally one of the dads came over and pointed out that we had tied the string to the wrong side. He was so nice, to come help us out. I wonder if he'll let me borrow his kid for some alpine drug running.