"Mom, what's wrong with my swingset?"
"Nothing's wrong with your swingset."
"Yes there is. Look at the end."
"What, did a bird poop on it again?"
"No, look!"
"Oh. ... Well, I guess we'd better fix that, huh?"
Yes, the end of the swingset fell off completely with no warning. The bolt holding the uprights onto the beam pulled right out, as did the screws on the L-bracket that was supposed to be holding the bolt in (great engineering job, there, former owners of the house who built the thing). Luckily, this happened when no kids were on it, although I'm pretty sure the beam the swings hang from wouldn't have crashed to the ground under the weight of the 11-year-old next door. $100 in supplies, two weeks to wait for the mail-order bars, and an entire day of work later ...
I still have to drill the hole on the little extended piece to hang the disc swing, and cut off the old support the swings used to hang on, but that hasn't stopped somebody from using the monkey bars continuously since the moment the concrete footings were cured.
You can't see it in the pictures, but it looks pretty funny to have all of the new construction (pretty close to) square and plumb, and the old structure ... really not. Maybe I'll get around to fixing that some day, since I had so much fun doing the monkey bars all by myself. If I ever pry the kid off of the bars, that is. Of course, she only goes hand-over-hand for one gap, then she stretches for the rest of it, the little cheaterpants.
Oh, well - stretching is good for the body, too.
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