They said there would be ice.

Local paper: "Ice rink comes to Frankston!"

Cool! I love ice-skating. And they're going to set up the rink in front of the AMC cinemas (I pause here briefly to consider the logistics of this entrerprise, but visions of ICE! sweep them out of the way. Of course, this being Frankston, it's more likely they would set up an ice cafe where discerning consumers might purchase the recreational corrosive and soul-destroying substance of choice, but sometimes I like my rose-tinted glasses.

A few weeks later, the boy and I are haphazardly wandering through a sunny Frankston afternoon in search of Star Wars lego and blue bias binding, when we see an enclosed space with the heads of several children jerking about in some disturbing marionette-ice-addicted fashion. Closer inspection reveals several grimacing parents wearing rictused grins while manipulating children across "ice".

Funny. It's not very cold. Or slippery, or shiny, or any of the other traits usually associated with ice of the  gliding-across-variety.
And this is, in fact, because said surface is not ice.
It's plastic.

Sheets of opaque white plastic, laid under a small pavilioned roof and fenced off for bystander safety.
I scuff my foot experimentally on an exposed patch. "Be good for dancing on." (Well, better than the sheets of ply optimistically called a "Dance Floor!!!" laid unevenly and without the aid of levels for the recent "Latin Fiesta!!!"

The boy: "This is STUPID. It's not even slippery. And they're not even BLADES."
He's right. The "ice skates" have more plastic (what else?) wedged where metal should be. Plastic on plastic is creating an... interesting friction coefficient. If it was any stickier the attending parents could simply wedge their child in place and collect them after dinner and a movie.

I toy a little with the idea of purchasing several litres of vegetable oil and making the "Ice Rink!" a slipperier, happier place, but this is Frankston. Someone would be handing out bikinis and setting up a wrestling ring before you could say "Hey, where can I get some ice?"