Mixed Results, but Great Fun!

 

Like Paul, I had mixed results. 

I brought one chair pad to Spy Pond Park on a Saturday morning, knowing I’d be sure to find parents and children, dog walkers, and the like. At the park, it was largely ignored for the half hour or so that I was there, except for one mom that looked at it and commented something like "Oh, look at that.  Someone made a bench pad out of plastic bags."  I also had a cat trot up to the lake to watch the ducks, and he jumped up on the stone platform and sniffed it before settling in by the water. 

I would have loved to see a child grab it and use it to sail down a slide, the way you’d use a piece of wax paper, but that didn’t look very likely to happen.

I brought my second chair pad to small plaza near Arlington Center, where several bus routes pass by.  Generally, people walked right by without looking, save for one man who read the tag and kicked it with his toe a little (I snapped a picture).  I then decided to physically intervene, and approached three people: and elderly man who spoke Spanish and no English (nice person who did his best to communicate with me, but we could only get so far), and two other kind souls, a man and woman willing to talk and let me snap pictures.  I basically explained who I was, what I was doing, and asked them what they thought and whether they'd use one of these bench pads they found it sitting there.  The man said maybe, adding that he found it interesting because he has a business that sells woven place mats (among other things).  He though it would make a great place mat.  The woman liked the idea, but said she probably would not sit on it if she didn't know how long it's been there, since she would be worried that it may have been rained on.  However she did say it's the kind of thing that she'd use if she had it with her and could take it with her to something like a sporting event.

I left both pads out overnight, and then checked on them late the next morning, on a Sunday.  One in Arlington Center had disappeared.  I checked all the garbage cans in the area, and the ground within a good 100-yard radius, but found nothing.  I hope this means that someone took it and found it useful.  


I found the other pad on the ground under an information kiosk near the bench that I had left it on.  Since the park was deserted at that point, I took this pad and brought it to Arlington center, making sure to wedge the corners between the slats of a bench so the wind wouldn’t take it away.  I’m hoping it won’t be there tomorrow, the day that our weeklong experiment comes to an end. 

To the girl scouts that I talked to at Stop and Shop on Saturday, as I was returning my extra plastic bags for recycling, we hope to hear from you.  If you decide to try this project, we hope you’ll have as much fun with it as we did.  I’m imagining the good you could do, playing with the design and distributing these things at a local sporting event.  Good luck with your cookie sales!