PLANK GOODNESS

When I was a kid, before the age of video games (hey, it wasn't that long ago), you had to go outside and play. Stay in the house all day? Nope, not gonna happen. So to pass the time on those long, hot, summer days, we had to get creative and come up with things to do.

We would play a lot of sports for the most part, football, basketball, kickball and the like, but we made some up too. Some games weren't really sports but still involved a ball, like "Hit the Man in the Tree". This is a game where everyone would climb up into this big tree and someone was left on the ground. That person would have a tennis ball and had to try to hit someone in the tree. When you did, you got to climb the tree and the person hit would have to climb down and try to hit someone in the tree. There was no winner really. And you'd think it would be better to be the guy safely on the ground throwing at people in a tree. But no, the object was to nail someone and get into the tree to get thrown at.

This game was such a hit to us that sometimes we didn't need a tree. We also came up with "Hit the Man on the Trampoline" and "Hit the Man in the Ditch". Never got around to "Hit the Man on the Roof" for some reason, though you'd think it couldn't be much worse than a tree. Anyway, pretty silly, looking back, but hey, we were kids. We were outside getting plenty of exercise.

These days, people are coming up with some really, really strange stuff. I guess it's good that people are getting outside and doing something as opposed to being parked inside playing Wii or Xbox all day, but then again, are they really doing anything?

I present to you "PLANKING".

Planking is when someone lies down flat, with arms to their side, to mimic a wooden plank. The term "planking" was coined in Australia earlier this year, but the "game's" origins can be traced back to England in 1997, where it was called the "lying down game". This "game" slowly started spreading around the world. In 2003 it hit South Korea. They called it "playing dead". It was "à plat ventre" (on one's belly), in France in 2004. When it got to America last year, it was called "facedowns".

The purpose of it seems to be to just "plank" anywhere you can, have someone take a picture of it, then post it on the world wide 'net. And because of the internet, people, of course, are want to do it in the most unusual places.

At the supermarket for example.

In the supermarket.

Don't let the ol' 9 to 5 stop you from planking.

A single plank not good enough? How 'bout the triple decker?

There's zoo planking.

Gangsta planking.

Would you like fries with that plank?

The 7th inning plank.

A planking convoy.

OK, I don't think this is planking, I think she's just stanking drunk.

They've even got pets planking.

Is "planking" the best people can come up with? And is this really sweeping the planet like it is? What's next, standing straight up and calling it "Poling"? Leaning everywhere you go and calling it "Tower of Pisa"?

You know what? I'm someone who always tries to live by "don't knock it until you try it", so here it goes.

Fence planking.