Suburban Survival Guide to Amusement Parks

I love amusement parks. Something about the sweet smell of sweat with a tinge of vomit, the time you get to spend with loved ones moving in lines like sheep to the slaughter, and the fact that your spirit (read: wallet) feels ten times lighter by the time you leave really brings out the best in me. On top of everything else, there are the people. I defy you to find such a cheerful intermingling of colorful characters from all walks of life anywhere else on earth.

Seriously, though, I defy you to find anybody in one of those places that could even qualify as fully bipedal, let alone human. Every last one of them is an animal, and they’ll bite and claw their way to the front of any line and poop just about anywhere. This makes enjoying the amusement park a very secondary goal to surviving it, but thankfully for you, I’ve written a guide to doing just that. I’ve broken them down into the major groups, and if you carefully memorize my instructions, you just might make it out alive.

I’m not sure why, but for some reason, rednecks congregate at amusement parks as though they were monster truck rallies. In California, all of these rednecks hail from Bakersfield and surrounding cities, parts of the state which neither Northern nor Southern California will claim as their own.

"Though all carnival games are impossible to win, the rednecks will remain unphased."

The rednecks are easy to spot by their haircuts—since money spent on a haircut is money not spent on chew, they either wear mullets and ponytails or make a poor attempt at shaving their own heads. Other telling physical attributes include an excess of camouflage, overalls, trucker hats, and the sort of gag-inducing physical abnormalities that can only result from inbreeding or the gross misuse of farm equipment (sometimes it’s hard to tell the two apart).

Habitat

Often, they’ll be found at the base of the highest of “them fancy whirligigs” staring upwards in wonderment. Once their necks begin to hurt, they’ll move onto the only territory that feels familiar to them in this noisy, flashing, mechanical world—the game where you have to shoot targets that pop up. I wish I could come up with a more succinct name for that, but unlike more famous titles like Whack-a-Mole, this particular game holds only the favor of rednecks, and since they can’t read anyway, no one’s bothered to name it.

Though all carnival games are impossible to win, the rednecks will remain unphased, despite the fact that “Paw’s gun ain’t never shot bad like this ‘un.” They will remain huddled around until they must leave to attend the nightly pig-roastin’ to play their jugs and musical saws.

Rednecks are easily distracted and thus avoided. Tell then that somewhere one of their white brethren is busy deny his heterosexuality, that someone left the pig pen open, or about the women’s rights movement. Alternatively, if you’re feeling particularly belligerent and think you can take the redneck in physical combat (you should remember, here, that rednecks are too dumb to feel pain), simply let him know the true historical result of the Civil War and prepare to defend yourself.

This group of amusement park denizens are old enough to be without parental supervision for a day, but no longer. Thus, because none of them is old enough to contribute anything to society through honest labor, they whine to their parents constantly until they are given money and released to create mischief that is out of sight and mind of the people cursed with the beleaguering task of feeding and clothing them.

They imagine themselves to be of some importance because of this unusually large separation from their caretakers, and their actions reflect this misconception. They will talk loudly (for everyone around them must want to hear the juicy sort of gossip they hold) of how Joanie and Billy were kissing behind the gym last Thursday (Joanie, you slut) and of the half-finished handle of plastic-bottle vodka that big brother bequeathed to them on his last trip home from college.

Everywhere. With spirits yet uncrushed by the weight of the world, they have the energy to sprint back and forth across the park, usually passing directly in front of wherever it is you are trying to step. In addition, their numbers allow them to generally be anywhere you wouldn’t want them to be (e.g. somewhere within earshot). They will often not be immediately visible due to their diminutive statures, but they are almost always readily identifiable by the high-pitched squeals and awkwardly cacophonous voices that accompany the beginnings of puberty.

Wait 30 years. By this point, these little boys and girls will have become slaves of the wage, working day-to-day to send their little bastard kids to the amusement park because they don’t want to listen to their screaming around the house any longer. Unfortunately, those same children will have caused the kind of irreparable stress and psychological damage that can only be repaired by years of therapy that their parents’ nine-to-five blue collar job doesn’t provide insurance coverage for. Thus, their day without children around will be spent trying to nurse the sad, abortive beginnings of an erection that will prove ultimately unusable.

When their jobs cut down medical benefits for the fourth time, they will be unable to afford the antidepressants that had been so necessary for maintaining relationships and living with their own self loathing. Unable to pay the child support bills that are resultant from an unavoidable divorce, they will end their respective lives with the kind of peace that can only be found by sitting in a running car in a closed garage until death cradles them in its gentle arms.

In the years before Mom and Dad are able to release their young alone and trust them to return (no matter how hard they wish otherwise), they are forced to accompany the beastly things. Theoretically, this should result in a relatively controlled group of whining little brats, instead of the unchecked rampage of their tweener brethren. Theory, however, serves little purpose in the cutthroat jungle that is the amusement park—be fully prepared to witness these creatures loose and free of any vestige of parental authority.

At first, the children will remain with their parents, who will insist on going on relatively calm rides. However, like in all other situations in which they want something, the children will constantly whine until their parents give in. This will result in the two groups separating—the parents to remain at the table of the food court complaining about their sore feet and lost youth, the children to subject their stomachs to nausea-inducing coasters and nausea-inducing amusement park food.

At this point, the young offspring will begin to act very similar to the tweeners. Because they know they will soon have to return the monotony of dodgeball, macaroni necklaces, and math that my cell phone can do, they will put their little feet through more running than a week of P.E. just to make sure they capture ever last iota of fun that is to be had. Thus, they will tear around the park in a manner very similar to that of their almost-teen elders, except each of their trips will include a stop back at the food court to damage Mom and Dad just a little more by demanding money.

The key here is to take advantage of the parental element. Follow the little wretches back to their progenitors, then spin a story about the sort of mischief they’ve been getting into. The parents will accept any excuse to leave the park and won’t question or not whether little Susie and Timmy were, in fact, hurling their own feces at the park’s other residents. Mention the possibility of security hunting down those responsible to hasten their departure.

A little part of you may scream out in defiance—something about immorality and all that—but realize these children have invariably committed some equally heinous crime which went unpunished, and you are merely helping to right the balance of the universe. Good for you, I say; good for you.

Not to be confused with a normal couple having a stroll around during the day, the couple is making out. Always. They’ve probably been dating for three weeks; she just let him in her pants last night, and now she’s making him take her as the kind of payment that doesn’t legally make her a prostitute. He’s not happy about it, but as long as she’s going to be all touchy-feely, he’s happy enough to pass the hours trying to break records about inches of tongue put down a young girl’s throat.

The more virile males will take up residence in the darkest and most deserted corners of the park, where they may be permitted a roving hand or an inappropriate grab. The rest will spread themselves around the park, positioning themselves on benches, in lines, and occasionally on roller coasters (only the sort with bench seats do not interrupt their passionate embrace).

The female will always be protective of her mate, which you can use to disrupt the sloppy courtship ritual in which the two are constantly engaged. Introduce another young, attractive female into the interaction, and watch the response of the first. Her hair will rise, she will bare her teeth, and all the buttons will fly off her shirt, revealing a braless breast housing two small, if supple, mounds.

At this point, someone will mysteriously carry out a kiddie pool filled with vanilla pudding, then disappear into the crowd. The two will wrestle fiercely (but gently… oh, so gently…) until security manages to break through the surrounding ring of fathers, who will later be lectured by their wives for being a part of this spectacle, and remove the two gladiatorial vixens for violating the park’s policy on “maintaining a family environment.”

To be fair, this particular group is more of a subcategory. You can find the obese among all the other groups—primarily rednecks, but also big-boned tweener kids and the intertwined globules of flesh and lard that are the obese couple. Nonetheless, this particular minority manages to take up more real estate than those of us who don’t celebrate annually the invention of the elastic waistband, so they’re worth a paragraph or two.

These creatures primarily reside in the food court, which should be rather apparent. While you and your friends mill around trying to decide what to eat, they will be lumbering from booth to booth, picking up something at each stop. Once they sit, they will meld all the tastes together in a nauseating amalgam of overpriced pseudo-meat and sugary desserts. You probably didn’t think dipping your corn dog in chocolate sundae was a good idea (it’s not), but that doesn’t deter these beasts of fatty-tissue burden.

If you ever need to evade one of these creatures, just run—it shouldn’t be altogether too hard to get away. For those of you who are crippled/for some other reason unable to outrun a person who is going to die 20 years before you because his cardiovascular system is going to cease to function, there is another option. Thankfully, the amusement park has built-in defenses against these creatures—the rides.

Run through the lines, and jump in a seat. If the meaty marauder tries to follow, he will be gently but sternly turned away by the acne-ridden employee pointing at the sign regarding those of “larger than normal proportions.” With no other choice, the corpulent charlatan will turn away, shame-faced, and retreat back to the comfort of donuts and anything battered and fried.

Unless you’re living under a rock somewhere, you’ve already seen dramatic prairie dog. This, however, is the dramatic prairie dog Sparta remix. No more need be said.