The Amusement Park

                I went to an amusement park this weekend.  Let me tell you, it was badass.  This was some plain-old, kick your ass Thrills Central.  The roller coasters were sweet: surprisingly smooth, ridiculously tall, and thrillingly death-defying.  That’s some dangerous shit.  You just gotta succumb to trusting that you’ve got no control in this shit.  If the engineers fucked up or the maintenance was shoddy, and worst of all, if management sucked, that’s it.  Too bad.  Shit could get real-ugly-real-quick.  These things go so superfast and through ridiculous shit, it’s putting pure trust into the predictability of the world as we know it: reliable for the most part, guaranteed to fail. 

                A big-ass magnet pulled our train of two-by-four seaters up a steep hill as we fell back into the seat astronaut-like, staring straight up into the blue sky.  That thing pulled us up that hill no problem!  Ridiculous.  The fall in front, pretty much straight fucking down.  Cool.  Bring that shit.

                This hill really is almost straight down.  These new generation “coasters” push technology to the limits of acceptable safety, giving thrills of death in a controlled manner.  That’s what makes them fun.  We love thrills ‘cause it reminds us of death.  That’s life…

                If I could, it would be fun to describe how scared I was.  I wasn’t.  This was pure fun.  I knew I wasn’t gonna die, but really, that’s some guaranteed death if something goes wrong.  Shit.

Wanna hear scary?  Driving a car is scary.  Roller coaster?  Damn.  That’s fun.  Fun because it’s so much more controlled and regulated.  Driving on a highway with cars has so many more variables, it’s much more scary.  Dying out there is considerably more likely than on a roller coaster, unless you’re stupid and get thrown out of your seat, like I once pushed the limits of as a teen by keeping the restraints loose and shit.  A buddy hauled me back into our cart… absurd, but true.

                So the roller coasters were sweet.  I was nervous at first.  Really.  I wasn’t sure how I might react to coasters because it had been so long.  We got to the park to raid the best rides as soon as they opened.  In line on the first ride, I turn behind me to chat with a couple behind me wearing glasses. It was the part of the line where you split off from the constraints of the queue and enter the relative openness of getting to choose what part of the ride you want to get on: front, middle, or back.  They were at least in their 50s.  I asked them about their glasses and whether they feared losing them.  They were like, “Oh no.  They’re (the coasters) so smooth.  It’s no problem!”  That’s all I needed to hear.  I never saw anyone else come close in age to them the rest of the day standing in line to ride roller coasters but I was glad to see them.  That was cool as hell.  They were badass.  And did I tell you?  The coasters were sweet. 

                Amusement parks aren’t strictly rides, though.  Let us not forget the games of chance.  Three balls for $5.  Get the ball into the basket and get a stuffed animal.  Get a second one in and get a bigger one.  Get the third in and get both. 

                My favorite one though was a rope ladder.  It was like a pirate ship ladder, rope on either side, connected with wooden pegs for climbing.  This thing was on a free-turning swivel on both ends, which allowed the entire ladder to twist and pitch and yaw freely.  It was hung in a mostly flat, horizontal level, the object being to climb to the third rung from the top, painted red, and to put both feet upon it.  Then, you had to reach up and hit a red button in front of you.  Ding ding!  If you lost your balance, you fell over the side onto a huge air mattress.  If you succeeded to hit the button, you won an outrageous, big-ass six-foot tall frog.  It’ll only cost you $2 a try, motherfucker.  Step right up.

                It was easy enough for the first three rungs, but as you progressed toward the red rung, the angle steepens considerably.  Never mind that there’s only like eight to ten total rungs.  Getting to the Holy Grail red peg with your feet, let alone your hands was tough!  This is deceivingly difficult, but worth taking a chance at $2 a try.

                How’d everybody do?  Not a chance!  One by one, each of us got bucked by this thing.  Nope!  You?  Nope!  Try again?  Fuck!  That kid got in the way.  Sweeeet.  Yeah, I’ll go again.  Fuck!  Impossible, but doable, damn it!

                Everyone was dumbfounded trying to figure out how to beat that shit while standing in line for the next ride, a wooden teeth rattler.  This shit was not smooth.  This shit was scary.  Lots more could go wrong with a wooden coaster: an old wooden coaster at that.  It bounced you up and down for real.  You got off this motherfucker with your teeth ground down and a headache to boot.

                But wait, there’s more!  There’s the hammer where you hit the target and it hits a bell.  Ding!  You got it to the very top.  You win something.  Even better was the booth next door.  This carnival would be incomplete without the “guess my age or weight” booth.  The guesser employee stands in front with a microphone incessantly greeting the park visitors until some sap goes up to be like, “yeah, I’ll give you $5 to guess my age/weight.” 

                This was thrilling!  I don’t want to be sounding mean just to be rude, but this heavy broad wearing a light-blue strapless tube top looking all grim as she paid up to have this poor 20-year old chick guess her weight was, shall we say, large.  If anything, she looked rather angry, giving the guesser an intimidating stare, as though she were Ray Lewis letting his opponent know his ass was gonna be tackled... hard!

                Drum roll please…  What was chica gonna guess? I was thinking like, “Oh, damn, bitch.  No you didn’t put her into this predicament."  If she guesses too heavy, she might offend.  If she guesses too low, she’s giving you free shit.  Poor girl.  It was a lose-lose situation for the employee.

                “Uhmmm.  Let’s see here.  Hmmm,” says she.  Then she says it.  “Uhh, 142?”  Immediately, I was like, “No fucking way!”  Perhaps double that, and maybe we'd have a game here.  I already knew she was more than no stinkin’ 142.  I didn’t even wait to see how much she really weighed.  I couldn't believe it.  That must be the worst fucking job in the park.  Or the best.  If you didn’t give a fuck, you could be honest and call them out for steppin' right up.

I think guessing someone’s age can be  just as tough.  You put someone on there that looks old, you might guess too high and they get pissed off.  Maybe there’s an unspoken rule that you guess “nicely” to keep the guests happy.  I couldn’t do it.  I’d feel like a fraud.  I’d get fired.  I mean, can you imagine if you needed to feel better about your age or weight and you go to the amusement park for some validation, only to have some jerk be like, “You look like hell.  I’m gonna guess you’re 59-years old.  Oh?  36?  Let me see some ID!  I’ll be damned!  We have a winner!  Here’s this little Snoopy doll!  Next!” 

                The amusement park lived up to its promise, though.  It was amusing as hell.  It also helped me figure out what I’ll do in retirement: I’m gonna build me one of those rope ladders in the backyard and practice so I can master it by the time I retire.  Then, I’m gonna get a season pass and win those six-foot tall frogs for $2 at least three times per day and give them away to random strangers.  I’ll look like some badass ninja running up that ladder.  Then, I’ll pop a squat in front of the “Guess my age/weight” booth and heckle those guests who put the guesser in a bad spot, and heckle the guesser if he/she guesses too nicely.  I’m gonna be the number one fan at this sporting event with laypeople in lieu of athletes.  It’s entertainment.  It’s the American Way.  It’s badass… literally.