About 2 weeks ago my wife and I were with some friends (a woman and her 2 young sons) on the beach. The day before I had begrudgingly let my wife buy a kite for a discounted 65 cents at the grocery store. At the beach, she and our friend broke it out and set it up without reading the instructions. I ended up holding the kite while the oldest of the boys took the string, unwound a bunch, and then began jogging as I let go of the kite. Sadly, the kite went straight for the ground each time we tried launching it. Passersby I asked weren't versed in the arts of flying kites either, and the only "experience" I had was about two attempts as a kid in the backyard, where after about 5 minutes it would get stuck in a tree and I'd feel depressed for awhile.

Finally we inspected the kite setup and saw that one plastic piece needed to be turned around and that the string needed to be centered a little better on said plastic piece. Voilà! Success. The wind was strong enough that no jogging was required. We buried the end of the string in the sand and just watched the kite soar. It felt good. And I could bury my awful kite flying memories, too.

I now promise not to complain about 65 cent kite purchases... they're probably worth 3 times that much.