terror at the fair

The gateway into our fall can be found in our little county fair. Held each year at this time, and slowly shrinking in size and importance. The fair is supposed to be about the kids and the continuing effort to keep the youth of America interested in Agriculture and Agribusiness. Sadly, kids don't want to take the time to learn about the animals or how things are done. They just want their hot pockets and an X box. If there was ever a valid argument for corporate farms, this is it. Eventually, it will cost too much and there won't be anyone around that knows how to raise the livestock or tend to the fields. But our little fair still hangs on and there are still some kids involved. With all that is lost each year, there are still the animals, the quilts, the cotton candy and the demolition derby. I still enjoy the livestock auction, the art, the produce and... The cheap trill ride.

We don't get the full deal rides. The ONE we get now is not the gaudy light bulb encrusted death machine that is run by those kids from detention. The get the same ride and... I am not sure why we have thrill rides or what kind of sick mind would come up with these things, but I know that I love them so. As a child I would go to Worlds Of Fun, in Kansas City, with my Uncle Billy and we would ride such thrilling rides as the Orient Express, the Zambeezee Zinger, The barrel and The Octopus. All rides that were designed to make you throw up the food that you overpaid for ten minutes ago. They were towering, permanent structures that were as impressive as they were scary. Large towers of wood or steal. I used to think that the rollercoaster looked like a small track with a snake moving along it at the speed of pure terror. As you would approach each ride you would see the people coming off from a walkway about twenty feet away from the entrance. Some would come off, puke on themselves and get back in line to ride it again. That only added to the fear as the smell of vomit followed you all the way to the ride itself. The amount of food ingested and lost would make a bulemic proud but now when I see rollercoaster or any thrill ride, I can smell vomit.

The fear of a thrill ride comes from many different angles depending on your age. When you're young, it's just the unknown and the devilish grin on formerly trustworthy faces that scares you. As you get older, and you hear horror stories of people being flung off rides, some up to a mile and then they landed on spikes, that starts to enter your mind before you get on a ride and that frightens you. In today's media you hear more and more stories about malfunctioning rides and maintainence mishaps killing people like you or stranding them for hours in uncomfortable positions. Then you hear how today's technology is pushing thrill rides to the very edge of terror possibilities. What we are trying to do is die a horrible death with people watching. To add insult to injury, they will take a digital photo of your last moments on earth which you can take home and have framed or displayed next to your casket.

The de-evolution of safety as I have seen it with my own eyes starts with my first rollercoaster which had me strapped in to a car with three other people. A padded metal bar came over my shoulders and locked in between my legs. A few years ago, I rode something that had me wearing a hang gliders outfit, a strap on my back that pulled me 280 feet into the air, backwards and then I had to pull a cord on my chest and I fell straight towards the ground. A few years from now, we are just going to throw people into a pit of hungry lions and make them run for an exit door.

The fear I get from thrill rides only lasts until I am done with the first ride. Then, I am ready to die by being flung over a mile and landing on spikes. Hell, set me on fire and then fling me. Bring it on! I just have to get over that first ride. The thoughts of bolts popping out and large sections of track falling away constantly stirring in my mind as the ride, and my so called friends, tease me to ride. The peer pressure is really bad when you see small children riding it and taunting you. Another reason I don't like kids, you can't hurt them... Legally. The people that design the ride deliberately drag out the terror experience by forming the long lines to get on this death rocket within earshot of the screams of those who are already riding it and dying on the spikes. They make the loading process frightening by hiring children to run things and make sure you are securely in place for the experience. I can't tell you how many times I was sure that I was not properly strapped. I mean, come on, they are teenagers. They are prone to practical jokes and they like to "see what would happen if you... blah, blah, blah". But, I guess if they hired adults to do those jobs, you would feel better and that would take away from the overall terror experience. THEN, they make the beginning of the ride is slow and ominous. They should play the theme to JAWS while they drag it out. You have a few moments of being trapped and to really think about what is happening to you. It's too late and the second guessing is coming fast and furious. Then... Your nuts get a little tickle, you stop breathing for a few seconds, your teeth nearly bite off your tongue and G forces are bruising every exposed part of your body that can slam into something. This continues for five minutes. You get off the ride feeling as if you just came back from a war. "Look how brave I am, I wasn't scared at all! We should ride this thing backwards, without clothes and without safety harnesses!" We are all cool when we get off the ride even though our wind blown hair, our snot encrusted lip, our dried tears and our vomit stained clothes say otherwise.

My little hamlet isn't large enough for a major theme park and we only get this one thrill ride at the fair. You could argue that the food is the fear-laden thrill ride, but that's not where it's at. Our thrill ride is a fifteen foot high, bungee-thing. They strap something around your waist which is attached to two long bungee cords. There is another strap that holds you down and you can tell will launch you a mille onto spikes if it isn't secured properly. After a brief instruction about something which contained, "the ground" and "this cord" (which was swirling through my mind and made me miss the important instructions) the "adult" pulled a lever which flung me fifteen feet into the air and that was it. You bounce up again, not as high and that's all there is to it. And it scared the shit out of me. Instead of enjoying it, I was trying to figure out "this cord" and "the ground".

I am not a well known member of my community, but I am well known enough. I am the only male in town with a blonde streak in my long dark hair, I have tattoos, I am seen writing a lot at the cafe, working out at the gym and I am pretty damn sexy, however, I am one of maybe four smokers in town, which decreases my value. So I am "known". So when I do something it makes people turn their heads and you better hope that whatever it is you do, it's not something that they can remind you of for the next ten years. The fifty people that could turn and watch me fling myself into the air, did so. They were mostly kids and most of them now know that I scream like a girl when I am upside down and heading straight down. This isn't a proud moment for me, but everyone knows a bit more about me than before. I guess that is what makes the ride so terrifying. It's a simple little thing, that can leave you with an emotional scar for years. Which is much worse than landing on spikes.

Yes, the fall has arrived in my little mountain hamlet. For the next 7 months, there will not be a lot of people on the streets or in public, which is good, I will need a reason to stay out of the public eye for a while.