Six Flags And Holding!

Six Flags?  Well, I haven't been there in fifteen years!  The last time I went, it was with this guy that I had a mild crush on.  Oh and his parents went, too.  The whole thing was very strange.  I called out sick to work and ended up getting in trouble because the manager could tell I was on my cell phone and not my parents' home phone. Imagine!  Your boss thinking you were lying about being sick because you were calling from a cell phone!  As if anybody has any other means of communication these days!  I believe next time I need to call out sick (from the same company, unbelievably fifteen years later with about a decade hiatus in between), I will probably just text.

And the time before that?  Well, it was my senior trip!  Or was it my junior trip?  Or, crap, was it my eighth grade trip??? We took the big old yellow bus and I won a humongous stuffed dolphin from one of the carnie games.  That's about all I can remember.  The year was a haze, but the water rides were wet and wild and they were giving away stuffed dolphins like it was the end of the world.  And everybody thought $1 for a pop was a big deal.  What a crazy time, #classof98.

Did I also go with my parents at some point?  Oh sure.  My dad and I waited in long, winding line after long, winding line for each and every roller coaster, and my mother was pissed with a capital P.  Because what fun is it to drive over an hour up 294 only to sit on a series of benches while everyone experiences thrills of a lifetime?  No fun, that's the answer.  Live and learn.

But now the ride is not over an hour up 294.  It's 20 minutes down neighborhood streets, and I'm cruising in the back entrance of Six Flags like I practically own the place.  My husband and three kids now have season passes for the remainder of this year and all of next year.  Strolling through those front gates, though, is like walking through a time machine.  What year is it?  How have I aged so much?  And who are these adorable children with me?  What do you mean I birthed them???   Isn't this my eighth grade trip?  Don't I still have my whole life ahead of me???

What a different experience to go to Six Flags with my young children.  Now I am the adult escorting my child on their very first roller coaster.  Andy loved The Whizzer and even enjoyed our thirty minute wait last Monday while Chris (less of a wet rag than other parental units) waited nearby with Alex and Emily and a funnel cake. No complaints there, his plate was positively floating in powdered sugar! We hit all the kiddie rides, Chris and I taking turns riding with the boys versus waiting with the baby.  The sun shone brightly, promisingly, with all of the fun next summer will hold- provided we do not lose our souvenir 2016 free refill cups and/or have our on-loan stroller system stolen by shady looking patrons.  Andy and Alex think that the Six Flags is the greatest place on Earth, and I just may have to agree with them.  It's even better now; everything's better through the eyes of a kid versus a jaded teenager or a twenty year old faking sick on a cell phone with a goddamn antenna.

And yet, at Six Flags, there are glimpses of the past everywhere.  That same carousel, that spot where Shockwave used to be.  The place where the buses parked, a man-sized dolphin that looks like an old friend I once had.  How odd to revisit now.  How odd but wonderful.