Sophia Through the Looking Glasses

IT’S SUMMER TIME. It’s that time of year when you might consider going to an amusement park to feel the thrill of life again. Here’s an amusing little story about a time when my brother and I were stuck at an amusement park in Maryland (with some silly pictures of random people on roller coasters):

During my high school years my dad toyed with the idea of moving to Washington. He started a school of Theology in Ottawa and was considering moving it there (this story is getting pretty exciting, right?!?). So we went to Washington where he had a lot of boring meetings with boring people. Going to the JP2 Center (aka: Pope John Paul II Cultural Center) http://www.jp2cc.org/ was just not cutting it for us entertainment-wise, so my dad figured that he could unload us at a Six Flags Amusement Park in Maryland for an entire day. Alex (my brother) and I didn’t have any choice in the matter so we went. My parents found coupons that would give us admission for $10.00 each. They gave us $80.00 thinking this would be plenty for admission, lunch and dinner and said they’d be back at 10pm when the park closed. Off they went!

We got to the ticket booth and realized that our coupons were expired. The admission was actually $25.00 each, which, with tax left us with only $20.00 for the rest of the day. This was pre-cell phones so we couldn’t call our parents to come back and give us more money. Whatever. $20.00 seemed like it could potentially be enough. Unless you are a stupid idiot and buy a funnel cake for yourself when your sister is in the bathroom 2 minutes after you get into the park, which is what my brother did. So now we were down to $13.00 for the whole day, and it was only 10am.

After the funnel cake fiasco, we decide to go on the one and only water ride. My logic was that we would get wet, but the summertime sun would dry us off and it would be no big deal. We got on the ride and got wet. Soaked. Wet running shoes are the worst thing ever. Then the temperature dropped from 30 degrees to 10, and of course… we didn’t have any jackets.



Our second ride… BOY OH BOY… it looked amazing. It was one of those old-timey, rickety roller coasters that looked like it had been built in 1910 and sounded like it was collapsing underneath you. I’m scared to death of this thing, but we get into the last car and sit and wait while everyone is pulling down their safety rails. From the long line of cars ahead, you could see this park employee leaning over and saying something to everyone:

“T’sakegovhhyahglehhhhhhhhhssssssisssssss...T’sakeovhh…yahglehhhhhhhhhssssssissssss”

He kept droning on and on to each car, one by on, coming closer to us. He was a spindly old black man with a thick Maryland accent. He comes up to us and leans over:

“T’sake ovhh…yah glehhhhhhhhhssssssisssssss…” he says slowly. I look at him. He looks back: “Tsake ovhh yah glehhhhhhhhhssssssisssssss”. I still don’t understand him, so I just turn away and stare ahead. He gets right up in my face and says it again: “T’sake ovhh………yah glehhhhhhhhhssssssisssssss…” The ride stars moving…slowly. I don’t know what this man is saying but it’s freaking me out. Then he starts yelling at me: “Tsake ovhh yah glehhhhhhhhhssssssisssssss!!!! Tsake ovhh yah glehhhhhhhhhssssssisssssss!!?!!?!?!” And now he’s running beside us! This crazy, angry, black man is yelling at me and I am terrified. “T'SAKE OVHH YAH GLEHHHHHHHHSSSSSSSSSIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Then I figure it out. TAKE OFF YOUR GLASSES. In a crazed panic (the ride has started to take off) I take my glasses off and throw them over the side. I look over at my brother and say “what did you do with your glasses?!?”. He opens up his hand and shows them to me. “I’m holding them you idiot.” Needless to say my glasses were not in the best condition when I found them. The arms were completely bent down where someone had stepped on them. I straightened one arm, but the other just snapped off. I didn’t want to break them any more so we decided to get a locker to keep them for the day. It cost $4.00 to rent one, and $1.00 everytime you wanted to open it. Now we were down to $7.00.



I’m blind without my glasses and so is Alex. After a lot of yelling, I put my trust in him and he lead me over to the other side of the park where the more exciting rides were. Then he yells “SHIT.” One of the lenses from his glasses had randomly popped out and he had stepped on it. This is a fucking nightmare. So we decide to go back to the locker and put his glasses in there too. Now we are both blind and wet and walking around and it is fucking CRAZY. We keep bumping into people, who in turn get mad at us, and we have no idea where we are going. Unless we hold hands, we kept losing each other because I can’t see him and if he turns left I loose him in the crowd of bright summer t-shirts and khaki shorts. And I am NOT holding his hand. So we somehow get back to the locker and pull out his glasses with the one lens. We now only have $6.00 left for the rest of the day. If this was a movie, you'd probably see us both overcoming the odds and becoming the best of friends, riding on one of those magical carousels together, thinking that all of this had been put in place by fate to make us stronger siblings. But instead we were two angry people hating each other more and more by the minute in a place that was designed for happiness.

The rest of the day was spent fighting over the one-lensed-glasses, going back and forth. We looked like a couple of retards. He would take the broken glasses, look at a sign and say, “Let’s go there” then I would grab the glasses from him and say “Where?” and he would point somewhere and then we’d both get confused cause only one of us could see through one eyeball at a time. It was ridiculous! Also, we only had 6 bucks. We were starving. Hot dogs were $3.00 each, which we could afford, but we needed to have $1.00 to get my glasses out of the locker at the end of the night, so we couldn’t each have a hot dog. And being the loving siblings that we were we wouldn’t agree to share one. Instead we got a box of Tiny Tim’s donuts for $5.00 that made us nauseous.



We finally found one ride that we really liked. The wait was basically an hour each time you wanted to ride the 3 minute thing. Somehow, in my brother’s blindness, he had bumped into a garbage can that was blocking the handicap entrance. It was around the side where no one was watching and we figured out that if we went through the garbage can hole and jumped a railing we could get on the ride without the wait. So we did this about 10 times until a security guard caught us. He yelled at us, and I couldn’t see where he was coming from so I jumped down and fell onto the garbage can and it spilled all over my legs. Then we ran off into the dark.

The park ended up closing at 9pm, not 10, and our parents didn’t show up until 11. We were the only people waiting in the parking lot for two hours besides a huge, 20-person Indian family that had also been given the wrong pick-up time and were playing a massive game of kick the can with a can of pepsi. Eventually their Winnebago showed up and we were by ourselves. I'm pretty sure that's when we started crying. When our parents finally came, they were so tired they could care less that we were A) still wet, B) very cold and getting sick, C) starving or D) that I smelled like garbage. My mom said “You spent all of the $80.00?!? That was supposed to be safety money!!! I didn’t think you’d spend it all!!!” And my dad said “For God’s sakes… where are we going to find a welder in DC!?!” Anywhoo… that park was ridiculous. Needless to say, I was not amused…

But THIS is amusing (It gets good after the first minute): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdhLQCYQ-nQ&feature=player_embedded#!

Also, this is the crap roller coaster I broke my glasses on: http://www.sixflags.com/america/rides/TheWildOne.aspx The tag line is : "Experience the Terror of Timber." Piece of shit.