UPDATE: The trampoline sold the same day the ad was posted…

A Craigslist ad from a Wellesley dad named Scott Maney looking to sell an unloved backyard trampoline might be read like a harsher version of the “You’re Not Special” speech.

The ad’s text:

They begged. Pleaded. Told me how they’d use it EVERY day. How our house would become THE place to hang out. We had a hot tub. And a basketball court. And a fire pit. And a hammock. But if we had THIS, well, we’d be rock stars. Plus since I “messed up their lives” by moving them here in middle school, I owed them at least this much. God, dad.

So I caved. And I bought it. And I built it. And that first night they jumped. Then I watched from my window as the summer turned to fall and the fall turned to winter and the flurries came down and the snowmen went up and the rain came down and the flowers came up and spring turned to summer and I watched even still from the window, waiting, just waiting, for someone, anyone, to use that damn trampoline even once more. Oh please, please, just once.

My kids suck.

So after two years of sitting in my window staring out like a creepy old neighbor, I am selling it to make room for gardenias or tomato plants or a stockade jail to house three grumpy teenagers.

Haven’t decided yet.