I like Lagoon a lot. I have a lot of good memories going there with various friends, cousins, etc. One of my particular favorites was my cousin and I riding the Skyride across the park, and my cousin started yelling things at various passerby underfoot. She sounded like a Tourette's patient. The quote that stands out from that day was, "Liars go to Kansas!"
Apparently, Kansas is the circle of Hell that Dante forgot.
Another favorite memory was running into a high school friend who was in costume for the Frightmares. The same cousin and our friend and I were at Lagoon celebrating the friend's birthday, and a masked, faux-chainsaw wielding, costumed member of the "Hackenslash" crew came up to me and gave me a big hug. I knew exactly who it was, but my friend looked over and saw me hugging this stranger. It nearly gave her a heart attack.
I have some bad memories associated with Lagoon, too. Well, one. Lagoon is the place I discovered I have a fear of heights. I think I was about 10. It was the year they opened up the "Rocket" rides, and my dad talked me into going on "Blastoff" with him.
"It'll be like riding an elevator," he told me.
So, I got to the top of this elevator ride, saw the ground far, far beneath my feet, and subsequently experienced twenty seconds of Hell, not Kansas.
For the remainder of the day, I could feel the ground going up and down beneath my feet, and I was informed I was green at the gills.
In the subsequent years, people have tried various amounts of persuasion and coercion to get me onto the Rocket. Ex-Boyfriend did; no luck. Cousins, friends did; I stayed with my feet firmly on the ground. Even Tanner, the first time we went to Lagoon together, couldn't convince me to go on the Rocket.
Well, this time, because I love my husband, I let him convince me. While he was screaming, having fun, I had my eyes tightly closed and was making choking, sobbing, whimpering noises. The ground never felt so good.
Then he said, "Hey, it's my birthday. Want to go on the Skycoaster?"
Because I am a sucker for my husband, I said yes.
I've been indoor skydiving before, and even at that 15-ish feet, I was scared.
So we went over and paid for our tickets. I was having some trouble with my mobile because I am technologically challenged sometimes, and so I wasn't really considering what I was about to do. I didn't even really think about it until I was all harnessed up, holding the bottom of the harness like some sort of weird mutant marsupial, and about to be hoisted up to forsaken heights and then dropped like a sack of bricks.
So they started hoisting us up and up and up, and it just didn't stop. "How much higher up do we have to go?" I asked my husband. He just giggled. So I held onto my wrists, our arms linked like the attendants had told us, and waited for him to pull the ripcord.
The freefall for me was the worst part. I kept my eyes tight shut and I was convinced that I was going to splat on the ground. Tanner thinks it's the best.
"That's when you feel like you're flying, with nothing restraining you," he told me later.
"That's the difference between you and me," I replied. "To you, freefall says 'Hey, I'm flying!' To me, it says, 'Hey, I'm DYING.'"
So I did it. I took the plunge and took my flying-squirrel lesson. And obviously I survived, or I wouldn't be writing this post.
& That's Elementary.
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