You Must be This Smart to Ride
Theme Park Rules for Educated Riders

Summer is upon us and that means road trips to amusement parks. Since I despise both waiting in line and the “general public” (especially a mix of the two), I went the Thursday before Memorial Day. That meant almost no waiting… but there was a catch: the park was limited to only people who have never been (and never will be) positive, constructive members of society (minus yours truly of course). Nobody with any sort of real sense of accomplishment goes to a theme park during the day, on a Thursday, in May.

Luckily, to avoid having a complete resemblance to the “desperate loser” aura, I brought along a good female buddy of mine (something worth an infinite times as many points compared to a male buddy) who was gracious enough to call in sick to work and join me on my quest to achieve the speed of weightlessness. Since she is “mostly” innocent, we will call her “Easy E,” or “E” for short (sorry guys, not a sex joke… it’s about drugs). To give you an idea of the connection we share:

E: I like the way your short hair feels, do you just spend all day feeling it?
Jason: Do you just spend all day feeling your boobs?
E: Yes.
Jason: I will also pick yes.

Now to the rules. (If your IQ is lower than twice the cost of your ticket, please continue to be confused by the written word and whether or not it’s okay to pee on the standing up roller coasters.)

This is probably the most important rule of all, and I was immediately reminded of it when I was foolishly lured into the bathrooms closest to the entrance—the same bathrooms everyone else uses when they enter the park after sitting in a car for hours... because no one want to wait for it to spill out when the “clicking” noise stops and you suddenly realize how far of a fall you’re about to take. I’m also pretty sure that “janitor at a theme park” is the name of the challenge presented to everyone who makes it all the way to the 6^th level of Hell. (I’m convinced Hell will end up being similar in design to Super Mario Brothers 3, with an exit at level 8. Now if I could only find that fucking flute…) If you have to go number 2, better hope you brought some penicillin along. The cesspool of diseases must have special mutations that spawn new strings existing only in amusement park bathrooms, and those foolish enough to not stop at the McDonald’s down the street before they paid $20 to park.

RULE #2: A trip to the amusement park should be treated like a trip to the museum: “Do not touch anything.”

Given our fellow park attendees, the one constant all day was white kids wearing only basketball jerseys and a baseball cap, tilted slightly off center so it looks like a hat would look if it could be cross-eyed (how Kevin Federline manages to have so many clones, yet so few album sales I will never understand). Because of the fine choice in dress and the 85 degree and sunny day, I always had a nice pile of sweat to grease the seat and the safety bar of every ride I went on (“and that’s what she said”). These kids seem to have some sort of belief against wearing sleeves, but then again, how else would hot chicks be able to dig their guns?

At every ride I got to hear the public version of sloppy seconds while listening to the teacher from the Peanuts comics tell me to wait until the car has come to a complete stop and to keep my hands and feet inside at all times. Believe me, the only place my hands were going besides the safety of my crotch was “up in the air like I actually do care” whether I get lubed up by the collective natural body oils of 200 redneck wiggers who came (possibly literally) before me. Anyway, fuck the Peanuts bitch and her “safety regulations”—only losers don’t have their hands up when the picture is taken mid-ride.

I thought I could help those kids out by reminding them of their low level of skin pigmentation, but I knew that would only end ugly. Nearly 75% of the time you are stuck walking around one of these groups, you will hear either “I’m Rick James, bitch” or “Yeaaaaahhh” or “Byahh.” Now I love Dave Chappelle as much as the next young white kid who grew up in the suburbs and has only heard of the fictional place known as “the ghetto,” but I have enough common sense to refrain from constantly repeating his material—at least not in public. E thought I was being racist, and to an extent I was. After hearing those kids repeat every line from Season 2, I started to hate white people.

The other consistent urge I had to help someone realize how ridiculous they look came up every time a 200-pound chick in a two-piece bathing suit walked by with her jean shorts on. I use the word “on” loosely, because the jeans are unbuttoned and unzipped while the material is being stretched to the max around what looks to be fifth-trimester gut (that’s where babies come from!), which of course has a fresh temporary tattoo that says something along the lines of “Thug Life” or “Lil Gangster.” As a rule, I’m all for women wearing the least amount of clothing, and that clothing to be in the process of being removed, but I also have another rule: “No Fat Chicks.”

How do the assholes who run the “Carney games” manage to sleep at night? You pay $2 for one chance at a game that has worse odds than Canada provoking and winning a nuclear war against the US, to take home a stuffed prized that was made in a sweatshop in Taiwan and retails for 50 cents (if I see another “Get Rich or Die Trying” shirt on a white kid from the suburbs, I’m going to go GTA all over their ass). One bastard even refused to demonstrate his game for me (because I wasn’t sure it was actually capable of being done), but I really wanted that large Stewie Griffin doll, so $40 later I settled for a purple “monkey.” Not because I couldn’t win 4 “small” prizes and trade up to a “choice,” just because I thought one small after 20 tries would be cooler.

Some of these costs may include $7 for a hot dog, $8 for a hamburger, and $10 for a funnel cake which may or may not suck you into a never-ending vortex of trailer trash. But the real cost is not monetary, it’s bowelary. You see, theme park foods are just like theme park rides: they may look inviting on the outside, but once you’ve committed, you get this really nervous feeling that it might not hold up. And you can be sure they’ve invested a lot more in making sure the rides hold up, because building on-site hospitals is a lot more cost-prohibitive than building an extra set of bathrooms. Which is exactly why breaking this rule will immediately put you at risk of breaking Rule #1. Before you know it, the theme park is all downs and no ups.

E: You manage to sound real tough when you’re safely behind a computer screen.
Jason: What can I say? I’m a man’s man and chicks dig it.
E: Do you mean “man’s man” in a literal sense?