Pirate ship/In-law apartment

We spent yesterday morning celebrating the birthday of one of Clara’s friends at an indoor gym filled with outdoor play equipment.

It’s actually a clever concept. All of the equipment that the children can play on is also for sale, so the business makes five bucks for allowing a kid to play indoors, and in return, the parents have the opportunity to playtest some of the equipment, including this enormous pirate ship which Clara adored.

And at $3,700, I thought the pirate ship was a steal. The only problem:

What do you do with your enormous pirate ship in five to ten years when your children outgrow it?

No one is going to buy it, since it can’t feasibly be transported to a new location, and it’s unlikely that you’re going to want to leave it in the backyard when your kids are teenagers.

Can you just imagine the kind of illicit and unspeakable things teenagers might do with access to something like this?

Then I came upon a solution:

An in-law apartment.

Yes, the interior of the pirate ship is small, and yes, it would require a little insulation and perhaps an extension cord or two to make livable. 

It might also be a little strange to have your in-laws living in a pirate ship in your backyard, but if you buy them a couple pirate hats, an eye patch and a parrot, they could make it work.   

And for many people (and I’m not necessarily saying me), it would be considerably better than having your in-laws puttering around your house all day, leaving dirty dishes in the sink and blasting the talking heads of MSNBC from the other room.