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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   1352 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 2, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Four years ago I bought a bounce house. A proper commercial grade bounce house. It's shaped like a pirate ship, 35 ft long, 15 ft wide, has a poop deck, a slide, a mast that can be climbed up, and a bunch of fake cannons.

I paid $1000 to get it used off craigslist, and it's the best investment I've ever made.

I've got 4 young kids: 7, 4, 3, and 2 years old. Right now, they're all jumping around and getting their energy out and happy to play together without daddy. It gives me a chance to cook dinner and write this real quick note. And they'll actually sleep tonight :)

I'm not gonna lie. I'm a 40 year old adult and that sounds awesome. It sounds like it was well worth the cost!

It's a blast for the adults too! We occasionally play a game called "hurricane" where I jump cannonballs onto the roof/walls and shake the ship from the outside. 30 minutes of that is a full body workout better than anything I've ever done at the gym... I'll be sore for days after...

When we need to clean it, I'll throw a gallon of bubble juice in. There's air leaking out through seams all over (this is intentionally how they are designed), and this leads to instant bubbles everywhere. Like 3 foot high foam pits covering the floor.

I feel like buying it for your 4 young kids is a bit different from buying it for yourself as a 40-yr-old though...

Agreed, buying it for yourself as a 40-year-old adult is infinitely more based.

XD

How do you handle it logistically? Do you leave it inflated all season? Seems like it would need to be rolled and stored somewhere dry if not inflated, but running the pump 24/7 seems inefficient and noisy. But something that large has to be heavy as hell to move back and forth frequently.

The thing weighs ~500 pounds. (The box it came in says 900lbs, but that includes a trolley and blower.) I can move it by myself, but only barely, and it takes about an hour to pack/unpack. So it mostly stays in the backyard and I use a tarp to cover it when its deflated and not in use. During the hottest months of the summer I usually put it in the garage to make a bit more space in the backyard to play.

We once had a rat eat a giant hole in the bounce house (1 square foot, plus a lot of smaller punctures). Surprisingly, it still stays pretty well inflated with the hole, but it was an easy patch job.

I also have the blower setup about 50 feet away from the bounce house and use ducting to move the air from the blower to the bounce house. It makes the operation essentially silent.

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