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Maybe I’m a little behind on the news, but what’s all this bullshit about tag being outlawed on school playgrounds?

OK, banning dodge ball, I understand. A dead-on hit with one of those things really smarts. Especially when you’re the little fat kid and the favorite target of every lunkhead in the school. I think I still have a few bruises from those days. But if I was in any way instrumental toward helping them work out their hostility issues early so they wouldn’t grow up to become lawyers or people who abuse their spouses or walk into malls and start spraying shoppers with bullets, then I guess I could call it taking one for the team.

I just wish I didn’t have to take so many.

Even hide-and-seek I could see putting the kibosh on. There’s nothing worse than finding a good hiding place and then no one bothers to come look for you, not even your older brother, and you’re there for hours and you have to pee and it’s getting dark and you’re hungry and your left foot has fallen asleep and strange sounds are coming from the forest and you don’t want to come out because you think you can hear Carrie Andress out there breathing, waiting to beat you up.

Well, maybe a good hit with a dodge ball could be worse.

Jump rope. There’s something that should also be considered for the verboten list. Ever watch a little fat girl jumping rope? She has to beg and whine until the popular girls let her jump in, and then, something mysterious happens to the ropes, instead of going round and round at a nice, low, jumpable rotation, they suddenly get higher and she tries anyway and ends up flat on her asphalt, with skinned knees, as the girls run away laughing and the teacher calls everyone back in.

Yeah. Maybe we should consider banning that, too. Of course if I had anything to do with young girls bonding and forming close friendships that would sustain them through the difficult times in their lives, instead of becoming scary loners like Squeaky Fromme, then maybe that was a good thing. I think my citation must have gotten lost in the mail.

But tag? Is there a playground game less innocuous? OK, when your brothers’ friends lurch up to you, grinning demonically, and punch you on the arm had enough to propel you backward, then declare you “it,” maybe that’s a good enough reason to at least put some restrictions on the game. Then again, common wisdom of that era used to say that if a boy hits you, it means that he really likes you. So maybe I was, once more, performing a public service. I was giving him a safe outlet to explore his confused pre-adolescent feelings so as he matures, he can learn to treat women better. Perhaps I wasn’t home when Gloria Steinham called.

Maybe we should ban recess altogether. Nobody gets hurt, nobody gets sued, nobody will need years of therapy when they grow up.

But then again, maybe some good old healthy American-style schoolyard bullying could serve you well later in life. Childhood trauma has been responsible for some of our best novels. The material it yields is almost as good as growing up Catholic. It turns you into a fighter. But I’m still waiting for my combat pay. And my body armor.

Maybe that got lost in the mail, too.