The smell of stale popcorn and fresh cotton candy fills my head as I step into the chaos. An amusement park is one of the only places that you can be a 35 year old grown man who has a 9-5 accountant position, and act like an 8 year old kid all day and not be looked at with an odd expression. Parents have eager children pulling at their arms to go to the next ride, groups of teenagers search for the next rollercoaster to scream their sore lungs raw some more and the workers all look on with 8 dollar on hour grins plastered to their faces. It's a beautiful place.
The sun is beating down on my face as I soak the entire scene in, taking a mental snapshot to begin my scrapbook of the memories of the day. A sweet breeze takes the reigns and rolls over my flushed cheeks where sweat is beginning to bead from the hot summer day. My t-shirt is clinging to the skin on my body and my skirt doesn't quite help as much as I thought it would. It's a warm day outside, folks, and it's only going to get hotter.
I walk towards a new ride that I've never seen before. It's a new haunted house that claims to chill you and thrill you for almost thirteen minutes and at the end it has something no other haunted house ride ever offered. But since it was new and fresh, I had no idea what it was. I wanted to see this ride; I came to the park almost strictly for this reason. Seeing as though I was the only person in my group of friends that wanted to, they all went to the log flume and I took my place in line at the new attraction.
People walked up right behind me and the line was growing longer and longer. I was glad I got here when I did otherwise it would have been a longer wait. But as it was I was up front after 5 minutes of waiting. As the attendant announces a "lone rida', do I got anotha lone rida'?" I can feel the embarrassment drip down my back in rivulets of sweat. A man steps out of line with his hand up in the air, mocking a salute to let the overweight and overpaid carnie know that she doesn't have to shout.
He was a gorgeous savior. His blond hair falls over his forehead and the back of neck, making my fingers itch to just run through the soft locks that shields his dark brown eyes, smooth and rich like a fine espresso and just as stimulating. The sun kissed amber of his skin is showing from under a white tee and board shorts as he jumps out of line and walks over to stand next to me.
"I'm a single rider." You would have thought he just recited poetry to me. My knees jelled at the phrase. 'Me? You want to ride with me?'
We enter the small black cart and let the "safety bar" fall into our laps. The bar is really just for their safety. What could the bar really save you from- Sudden cart accidents or falling out of the cart at its roaring 7 miles and hour? Thank God I had this steel bar across my lap or I would have DIED!
With a jerk to the right and a spin to the left we were tossed into a funhouse of ghouls and goblins and ghosts. And it was just as cheesy as it sounded. It was almost embarrassing. A few things jumped out at me and took me by surprise, once I even played damsel in distress and clung to my knight's arm next to me. In the black light I could see him looking at me and smiling. I apologized and he told me it was okay. He didn't mind. In fact, he was glad he was there to help. Nice, now he's laughing at me.
The cart took an abrupt stop in the foam cemetery and the ambient screams and moans of the plastic ghosts died. The lights went out in an instant and I moved back to my damsel in distress pose. I clung to the man's arm like it was my last piece of rope keeping me from falling through a shark's mouth. His hand moved up to mine where it grasped him and he said, "It's alright, probably just part of the thrilling ride."
