Ride Junkies

After the parade, we headed to the fair grounds, but the rides were closed. Until 6:00, because, get this: it's hot.



I inquired, as we got the essentials of life on an August day in Kansas: root beer, lemonade and junk food. The woman at the root beer stand said something about how when the ride operators get sued because someone got burned on metal parts a few times, they just won't run when it's this hot.



Allow me to translate this for you: the rides were closed because of lawyers.



I grew up going down metal slippery slides, and the lesson you learned, and it only took once, was don't put your bare skin in contact with metal that's been soaking up the sun all day. Coffee is hot, ice is slippery, knives are sharp, wood splinters in weather, and it's not anybody's fault. It is just the way life is, and you cannot eliminate all risk from it and probably shouldn't even want to.



In a sane world, the judge getting a case that the sun made the metal parts on a ride hot to the touch would say, 'No shit. Dismissed, don't waste the court's time with this drivel.' But then these ambulance-chasing jackals might have to find legitimate employment. Which should be easy: if you can sell old women legal services on the basis that she was the victim, not of her own carelessness, but of McDonald's neglect when she got scalded by a cup of joe she stuck between her legs and squeezed, you should be able to sell something people actually need.



Anyway, we probably would have thrown it in pretty early as hot as it was, so we went home and enjoyed the air conditioning until the rides were open. Which worked out better anyway, the rides are more enjoyable once the sun goes down and things cool off.



And we rode a ton. I bought the wrist-bands so we could ride as many as we wanted to. I think you break even in about five rides on that deal. It's expensive, but we're all three such ride junkies it's the only way to go. I think this is the only fair we're going to ride this year, if I can swing a similar outlay again it'll be to go to Worlds of Fun.



Though Worlds of Fun's rides lack a dimension of risk that a traveling carnival can't quite shed no matter how many lawyers try to destroy America. Take the Zipper, my favorite: this is easily the most terrifying ride in the world. I don't really fit in it, but the carnies running it are always game to jump on the door to get it to close on me even though this comes close to breaking my legs. You're locked in this cage and sometimes you're being crushed down, sometimes crushed up on your head, and in between, there are free-falls where it feels as if the car has broken loose and will smash against the earth. The creaks and pops the machine makes lend to this sense that you really are about to die.



And it's a machine that looks to be fifty years old and is maintained on the road by alcoholics. Nothing in any theme park is anywhere near that scary.



For that matter, the 'Cruisin' ride, a scrambler type thing, you'll find that in theme parks, but not this fast. I swear they set this sucker on Puree. I have bruises on my right side from being pushed against the wall so hard I couldn't inhale on the outward swings. I had to time my breathing, sucking air in on the returns. NASA could save a lot of money on things like the Vomit Comet by just turning the astronauts loose at a carnival with wrist bands. The wrist bands cost less than half what the Vomit Comet costs to operate every year.



I do wish they'd lay off the music. This isn't about the choice of music. I like Linkin Park, I like Ozzy, Bowling for Soup, even Alice Cooper, but blasting all of these at higher than concert volumes does not enhance the ride. It makes it necessary for me to take Mo out to the concourse for a break every few rides because as addicted as she is to thrill rides, the sensory overload is too much for me, so I know it's taxing her.



I did take advantage of those breaks to sample some of the most decadent junk food America has to offer. I had a fried Twinkie on one break (good, but the batter is too similar to the vanilla cake, a fried Chocolate Zinger would be better). On another I had a fried Snickers, which is just about as good as it gets. You know a chocolate chip cookie with the chips still melty? It's like that with melted caramel and peanuts thrown in.



And I have to almost admire the one ride I really hated: Deep Space. If the Zipper is the greatest thrill ride I've ever been on, Deep Space is the lamest. It's shaped like a rocket and you sit in tiny seats while a movie plays on a cracked screen at the front of the ship. The footage uses faded NASA stock and shots from 2001: A Space Odyssey, with a soundtrack that is scratchy to the point of incomprehensibility. The ship rocks and rolls to, I guess, create the sensation that you're not watching a shitty Sci-Fi short but actually flying in a shitty Sci-Fi short. I don't think I would have found it convincing even in 1975 when I would have only been five years old and the machine would have been brand new and the footage cutting edge.



At least Deep Space is the most of something. Risky for the carnival, though, because if I wasn't on a wrist band, if I'd actually spent three or four bucks worth of finite tickets, I'd be ready to punch someone.



But then, maybe Deep Space is just P.T. Barnum's legacy, like the Egress sign, come through here to see the Egress...