Hallboy and I decided to spend our Memorial Day holiday in the swarm of crowds at our local amusement park, daring each other to ride the rides. (I'm a speed freak--rollercoasters, that is--and he's a height freak. Our favorites are the other's fears.)
So, we're standing in line, waiting to board a rollercoaster. Actually, it's two rollercoasters, which one "races" the other. In the same line with us are many people, including a set of two girls, who look to be about 20 something, and two guys who are about the same. Hallboy and I climb aboard the car behind them when the next set pulls in and begins loading.
Now, I like rollercoasters. I try really hard NOT to think of the CSI episode where the car derails at the top of one of the hills and crashes into the parking lot. And, I try really hard to remind myself that engineers (or someone who has been trained) walk the length of the coasters every morning before the park opens to check for missing bolts, or bent metal, and that the park goes through inspections frequently, and they've never had any major accidents, like rollercoaster cars wizzing off the tracks, flying into the crowds and shattering into a billion pieces. I'm okay with this enough to get on a rollercoaster. I don't want to push things though, and try to think nice thoughts. For me, it boils down to karma.
So, Hallboy and I are sitting midway in the length of cars, and as we're pulling out--at the same time as the other set of cars we're to "race--one of the girls in front of us yells across the platform (to the other set of cars), "F*ck you, Scott, we're gonna win, you f*cker!"
If this isn't bad enough, the two guys in front of them reach out at attempt to "grab" the structure of the rollercoaster as we're heading up the first hill. (And, yes, their arms were long enough to do this.)
All I could think was that it sucks to be on the same set of rollercoaster cars as someone who is obviously building some bad karma.
05-31-2005, 11:55 AM
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