Lessons from Six Flags: People do change / being stubborn is lame

Instead of one post listing all the life lessons I learned at Six Flags Great America, I’m going to break it into multiple posts, because seriously people, THERE’S JUST SO MANY!

So, one of my lamest moments on this earth happened when i was 13 years old. I was at Great America with my friend Heather and she was begging me to go on the Batman. except i had heard some crazy story about people getting stuck on that ride for like 13 hours UPSIDE DOWN!

that’s crap, i thought in my little  eighth-grade brain. and i did NOT want to take any chance whatsoever of that happening to me. so i refused to go on the ride with her.

let me tell you though, that girl begged me for like two hours straight, and i just stood there like an idiot repeating the word no. Despite the fact that i sat in the little seat on display and made sure it was totally safe, and the fact that the chances of me being on the ride when it got stuck upside down were about 4,000,000,000 to .5.and HOLY CRAP  THERE WAS NO LINE! AND WE COULD LITERALLY JUST WALK ON! i still said no.

i was a stubborn little twit who refused to listen to reason. who refused to hear the facts and evaluate them and then change my mind.

and two years later, while riding in the front seat of the WAY SCARIER ragging bull, i knew that i had made the wrong decision to say no that night.

lucky for me, people do change.

i changed.

and i started listening to reason.

and when my friend shari had asked me to on the ragging bull, i listened to the facts and went on it. and it was SUPER FUN! and i’ve been totally hooked on roller coasters ever since.

my friend heather wouldn’t recognize me.

which i can only assume is a good thing. i mean, thank God i’m not the same person i was in junior high. that would totally suck.

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sweat: the greatest equalizer / great america RULES!

my family loves great america more than we love breathing/each other/life, so we decided to go this week.

on tuesday.

the hottest day of the freaking year.

for those of you on the edge of your seat, yes i bought the season pass.

!!!!!!!!

(anyone want to go to great america with me? or for that matter, any six flags theme park in the country? no. im serious. if you’re going, totally call me).

anyway, we parked in “Batman Section 44” (aka, the “cheap” $15 parking) and walked 1.3 miles to the gate. in that time, each of us lost 5.3 pounds of sweat.

holy sunbeam, it was HOT. no. wait. HOTT. there. now that i have added that additional T, you will be able to fully understand.

the good news is,  if you’re sweating, so is everyone around you. and that’s just the kind of confidence a girl needs when she has to wipe wet hair off her forehead and starts to realize that her deodorant isn’t making her as “sure” as she’d hoped.

my family is a multi-ethnic group, so only 3.2 of us had to wear sunscreen, but those of who did had on spf 70. and reapplied it. a lot. because we kept sweating it off.

seriously.

and that crap BURNS when it sweats into your eyes. something, i find slightly ironic from a product meant to prevent burns.

anywho. who here has the entire six flags great america theme park memorized?

ME! ME!

ok. for the 4.6 of you who know every roller coaster, here’s a rundown of what i went on:

the raging bull, the dark knight, vertical velocity (best ride eva), the batman, the eagle, and superman. also, i went on four different tube water slides, the lazy river and the wave pool.

summer sigh.

i love that place. and lines were super short because it was a tuesday. always go to great america on a tuesday people. everyone else in the world is in a cubicle on tuesday.

moving on, my mom lost my underwear and then i found them under a bench.

we were at the waterpark. and i handed her my clothes to stuff in the $14 locker ($14!! FOR A LOCKER??) and she dropped my pretty black underwear.

a top-five favorite of mine.

except i didn’t know that she dropped my freaking underwear until 3 hours later when i went to get dressed.

and she didn’t know she dropped them until i started screaming “WHERE ARE MY UNDERWEAR! YOU LOST MY UNDERWEAR!”

oddly, while walking to the bathroom, i looked to the right and there they were. in a little black bunch. my underwear. underneath some old, swimsuit-wearing man sitting on a wooden bench.

yes. i picked them up.

NO! i did NOT put them on.

jebus. really? what the heck freaking kind of person do you think i am?

gawd.

what’s that?

oh. ya. i am going to wash them and wear them again later.

top-five favorite pair people. top-five.

alas, i had a feeling something like this would happen, which is why i had brought an extra pair. but they were all the way in “Batman Section 44” of the parking lot in the trunk of my mom’s car.

so i had to wear my wet swim suit under my clothes until we got there. which of course made it look like i had just peed in my capri pants. whatev.

then i had to strip down in the car and change, while i made my family stand behind the popped trunk. and i was all sticky, and gross and full of sweat and sunscreen and my clothes were icky.

but heck ya if didn’t get to wear underwear the rest of the day.

also, during the day i somehow twisted my ankel,which has resulted in a constant, painful limp today.

whatev. it’s cool. because I LOVE GREAT AMERICA!

i love the rides, and the people and the bonding and the vacation feeling and the adrenaline, and the rides.

i just love it so much.

i do.

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