Monday, July 08, 2013

Monday Morning Stories With Mookie - Episode 76

The Time Mookie Vomited At An Amusement Park

I was reminded of this story when my ENTIRE family went to a nearby amusement park this past weekend.  In fact I'm reminded of it any time my kids want me to go on one of those "round and round" rides.  I can't ride that stuff anymore.  They give me a headache and they make me want to hurl - which sucks because my kids make fun of me.  That is of course until they ride them and then make faces that look like they are going to empty the contents of the stomachs on the sidewalk.  See...Dad's not so stupid is he??

When I was in high school, there was one epic summer where through a variety of circumstances I was able to go to an amusement park called "Adventureland" three times in one summer.  This was kind of a big deal to me because I like amusement parks (especially roller coasters), and I rarely went to them due to location and lack of fund-age.  The events that led to three trips were a summer family outing, and two church "youth group" outings. One was mine, the other was "Rick's(*)." The trip in question here was with my youth group.  I remember this because my youth group had a troublesome fellow named "Bert(*)" who invited a few other trouble makers for the trip.  Topping off anything else they did that day - they all "dipped" Skoal in the back of the van on the way home.  They tried to be discreet about it, but the entire van reeked of "wintergreen" chew.  The nicotine kick caused them to wrestle and roughhouse in the van.  Of course this led to the tobacco making them feel like hell by the time we got home.....But that's a different story....
credit: adventureland.com

When we got to Adventureland, Rick and I hit all the rides at the beginning of the park.  This included a rocking pirate ship ride, a little roller coaster, another little roller coaster, and some spinning whirly rides.  My stomach was starting to feel ill from the spinning, but I thought it was an anomaly since I had ridden all of this stuff in the past with little or no trouble.  Normally I was pretty immune to the effects of all these rides.  It was then that we decided to ride the "Falling Star."  As you can see by the picture along the side here, it is a platform that rotates sideways in a 360-degree circle. I had ridden this thing before and thought it was fun, so we went on it.  About 30 seconds into the ride, things took a turn for the worse.  My stomach said "I do not like this ride" and nausea overcame me instantly.  Each time the ride came down and threw me against the side of the car with its centripetal force, the sense of "tossing my cookies" was compounded ten-fold.  Holy Jesus.  The G-Forces (and negative G-Forces) were turning my guts inside out.  Somehow I held it together until the ride ended, and stumbled off the ride and down the ramp without drenching anyone in bile and lung butter.  Upon reaching the sidewalk outside the ride, I immediately found a bench and sat down try and "collect myself."  Instead however, my body decided to drench itself in sweat and the discomfort in my belly and head increased..  Rick looked at me and was like "Whoa."  After a minute of sitting, I decided that I needed to get up and try to "walk it off," or at least move in case I puked because I didn't want to puke there in front of everyone.  We started up this somewhat empty stretch of sidewalk, and as luck would have it - it was lined with open-mouthed trash cans.  My stomach decided right then that NOW was the time to void itself of its contents - and I WRETCHED.  I staggered as fast as I could to a trash can and spewed.  I looked up and no one saw me - except Rick - who was laughing his ass off.  I stumbled a little further and walked to the other side of the sidewalk where yet another trash can resided - and coated the inside of that receptacle with my breakfast: "BLEEEEAAAA!"  This continued for two or so more trash cans until I collapsed on another nearby bench feeling somewhat better, but still nauseous and feeling like my head was going to explode.

Remember the movie "Summer School" where the kid
barfs in the trash can after the roller coaster? It was pretty
close to that.
After a good span of time waiting for the dry heaves and endless sweating to subside, I felt well enough to hit some more rides - albeit ones that didn't go round and round and round and round.

Ever since then, I CANNOT ride anything that goes around in a repetitive motion like that.  Roller coasters that do flips?  I can do that.  Heck, I even rode something the other day that goes end over end forward and backward several times.  Those circular things though...forget it.  Merry-Go-Rounds, Ferris Wheels, Tilt-O-Whirls, Scramblers....anything that spins in a non-stop circle....you can count me out.  Even looking at them while my kids ride them is enough to make my stomach start contracting.

It sucks being a wuss sometimes.

Stay tuned for next week where I detail a story that happened on the Adventureland trip with Rick's youth group.  It's a good one.

(*) - Names changed to protect the guilty/innocent

Miss a previous episode?  Click HERE to catch up on the stupidity.

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