For Your Pleasure - vicky j dot org: The ideal rollercoaster

30th August 2010

Link reblogged from vickyj.org / pterodactyls with 21 notes

vicky j dot org: The ideal rollercoaster →

is called something like ‘Möbius’ Vexation’ or maybe ‘The Malcontent.’ It’s one where you hang from your shoulders/perch on a seat, so your feet hang loose and people who wear flip-flops lose them. It’s bright green and dark purple and has a totally absurd number of loops, and also those little…

I agree with most of Vicky’s criteria and would like to take this opportunity to add a few more of my own. I’ve been thinking about rollercoasters a lot since visiting Six Flags Great Adventure for my first time this past Saturday. Attending this theme park, I encountered a lot of firsts: The first time I felt mildly nauseous post-ride, the first time I felt superbly nauseous post-ride, the first time I felt intolerably, near-puke nauseous post-ride, the first time I experienced agonizing next-day neck and back pain, and the first time I had to ask myself if I was getting too old for thrill rides because of emerging physical inadequacies due to the aging process and the subconscious questioning of my mortality. I should mention that I am turning 30 in a few weeks.

Like Vicky, I prefer coasters where my feet dangle. For some reason, this feels more secure than having that lapbar precariously secured across my waist. While I love feeling like I am about to be ejected from my seat any minute, I’d much rather feel the rush of air against my unrestrained limbs. Somehow it feels more liberating and less sadistic. This is why I especially enjoyed the Superman ride on which you dangle, stomach-down. El Toro, on the other hand, is a wooden creation with the lapbar and an initial 78 degree drop in which your stomach leaps to the roof of your mouth and forces you to swallow it again. While the vertiginous thrills of this one were exhilarating and somewhat terrifying, they were disrupted by my neck jerking forward at every twist and turn. It didn’t seem as if my companions were really having this problem. Perhaps I simply lack the strength to combat the g-forces. My after-picture—the one they always try to make you buy and turn into a tacky keychain—depicted me with my head almost all the way down. It was a foreshadowing of the vomiting position I would want to assume throughout the rest of the day. But I managed not to! However, for the first time, while waiting for the next car of the Nitro coaster to pull up to the front, so that I could enter and embark once again on some harrowing and dizzying trajectory I had a minor freak-out and decided I was not capable of pushing the limits of my being. I had to respect my fellow passengers and not glaze them in my banana-bread puke. Since ingesting the sliver of banana bread at 8 am, I had not eaten anything all day. It was 4:30. I had to be a lame adult and gorge on some overpriced pizza.

While eating hot cheese in the baking sun surrounded by fanny packs and airbrushed accessories, I thought about how I would always regret not riding Nitro or Kingda Ka that day. I thought about how my 11 year old self would deem the 29 year old me a total loser. I thought about how I was old and tired and could no longer live for cheap thrills. I felt sad and alone surrounded by all these tweens high on adrenalin, soda and their death-defying arrogance that compelled them to document every scary moment from the front row of a coaster car and upload it to youtube that very night.

I rode the placid Congo River Rapids with profound remorse that afternoon. I had lost something of myself—something that was perhaps less than intelligent, but nevertheless an integral part of my youthful experience. The raft circled about through a simulacrum of tumultous waters, teasing me with the possibility of a deluge of water assaulting my being. I didn’t experience a single splash while the rest of my companions emerged drenched and laughing. I was right: My time for cheap thrills had passed.

My ideal coaster would be called This Mortal Coil. Like the RockIt at Universal Studios, passengers could choose from a wide selection of songs to act as the soundtrack to their half-baked euphoria. I would choose Motley Crue’s “Wild Side”. Like Vicky’s coaster, This Mortal Coil would have seemingly eternal loops and twists. It would go so fast, your face would feel like melting and your feet would tingle. When it came to a stop, one would feel young, alive, and full of plucky resolve. One would not feel the need for a chiropractor, Tums or a time machine.

Source: pterodactyls