Saturday, August 27, 2005

Terror and Bumps

As I type this, I am sitting on two bed pillows.

My tailbone (or "coccyx" for my fellow pharmacy chums) is a little bruised. Not from any "indoor fun", unfortunately, but a roller coaster. Yeah, I hurt my ass on this amusement park ride.



The whole family visited Canobie Lake Park today. It started off innocently enough (doesn't it always?). My sister and one of my nephews rode the carousel while her husband and my older nephew watched from a bench.

Meanwhile, my mom and I surveyed the scene and decided to get on a ride that looked pretty tame. We should have listened to the screams before we got on. Basically, it was a ride from hell that we had no business being on. Mom and I squeezed into a car, and we knew that these cars would go around and around in a circle and maybe tilt up a bit for a thrill. Tilt up? Try almost tip over! By the second turn, I was screaming like I was being mugged, and holding on for dear life. Mom confessed she closed her eyes because she simply couldn't handle seeing what was happening. When the ride ended, we sat in the car for a minute, stunned and trying to recover. If you go, it's to the left of the carousel and probably has a name like DeathWhip or something similiar to that.

Later on, a few of us decided to jump on the roller coaster. One chickened out so I had to ride alone or with a stranger. My companion ended up being a 10 year old boy whose first words to me were, "Is this safe?" After my previous scare, I was the last one to ask for reassurance. But he seemed pretty nervous (Um, hello, where were mom or dad?) so I got him situated with his hat and sunglasses and got us both buckled in tight. He said he didn't think he was going to finish the ride alive. I told him I was a big chicken, so he would be in fine company.

He started to groan as we lumbered up the track. I told him he could grab my hand if he felt really scared. Little did I know that I would be grabbing the bar in a death grip, screaming my lungs out on the first down hill. We were whipped around and down hills again, and I honestly didn't think my heart could take it. The little boy yelled, "MOMMY!" I yelled back, "It's okay, we're okay!". At that point I was probably reassuring myself more than anyone.

At one point I was up in the air, and then was slammed back down into the wooden seat. I was very happy when the ride was over, and the boy said to me, "We made it. We're alive!"

We got off the ride and as I walked to a bench to reunite with the family members who didn't go on the ride, my tailbone felt very sore. Hurt to walk, hurt to sit. Luckily my sister had some Tylenol so I could make it through the next few hours.

More on the weekend and a twist of fate with an attractive law student later.

1 comment:

Becky said...

Me too! I didn't think I would ever feel too old for an amusement park, but WOW. I was truly scared, and not in a good way! Haha!