That "splinter in your butt" happened to me when I was about 6. There was a merry-go-round in the school playground with wooden seats. They were as raggedy as you can imagine but we (and the school, evidently) didn't care. I was sliding on one of the seats (pushed by another kid) and about a 1 inch splinter went straight into my butt cheek. Had to go to the doctor to have that out.

I grew up with a wooden slide my dad made for my brother and I--you need to watch the grain of the wood (mine was plywood for the slide part), but if you take care of it well, you can avoid splinters. Plenty of varnish, etc..

Not too sure which is worse - fibreglass or wood splinters. Either can be painful. Club I belong to just removed a fibreglass slide due to splinter possibilities.

Help me out here. Is that a wood slide? Yowl!

for splinters on that wooden slide.

As a kid back in the early 1980's I vaguely remember seeing a slide similar to this in a very old playground. The wood was quite decayed and very splintery. I'm actually surprised that that was around, even back then.

The kid's legs through those metal pipes on the sides, seem like built-in femur snappers, not to mention the catch point for a scarf trailing behind them so they can hang themselves during the winter.

I'm sure the wood was shiny and smooth once, but I imagine after a few years of the elements and wear & tear, it eventually became a splinter-filled slide through Hell with a hard landing to hit the point home.

This is the first time I have seen a wooden slide. After a couple of years in the Queens winters and the summer sun, I would expect the splinters to start poking the way through the kids pants (or dresses, in the case of the two in front).

That middle kid better take his legs out of the handrails before it's too late!