Trip to Six Flags

Not long after we moved to Denver, I was forced by my wife to take the family to
Six Flags at Elitch Gardens. She was sure that this would promote bonding and family happiness more than the trip I wanted to take—the Coors Brewery tour, complete with product testing. There was also a rumor about skinny-dipping in a brewing vat that I wanted to check out.
But, being the family man that I am, we went to Six Flags. It was the veiled threat involving sleeping on the couch and doing my own cooking for the duration of our soon to be ended marriage that really made up my mind.
To get to Six Flags, we had to use the world’s longest and narrowest parking lot, also known as Interstate 25. Any trip along I-25 is a challenge. There are only two speeds allowed on the highway. It is either dead stopped, bumper to bumper, or 75 MPH, also done bumper to bumper. I try to stay off that highway as much as possible. I have seen, as I go over it, men sitting on top of their cars in traffic jams with signs saying, “Will trade lap-top for bottled water” for two days in a row. We were lucky in that we got a 75 MPH day, and were soon there.
By “there”, I mean the parking lot. Now this is not your ordinary parking lot. After several hours searching, we parked somewhere in eastern Kansas. They had shuttle buses to take you to the train stations to take you to the park entrance. We did not know about the buses because people waiting for the buses had used the signs as firewood. So we made the same mistake that thousands had made before us, and we started walking. As we walked, we started to see abandoned baby carriages, ice chests, and other belongings that had become too burdensome. Soon we saw clothes and pets that were left behind. I was expecting to see crosses marking the graves of the brave souls that had died on the journey when we finally got to the entrance.
As you know, most places like this have an ATM in case you need cash. Six Flags has taken it one step farther and have a branch bank so you can take out a loan on your house to buy tickets. There is also a blood donor operation and a small dark building with a sign that says, “We buy souls”.
We were able to get in after persuading the ticket taker that both our sons were under two by carrying them on our shoulders. It would have been a snap, but my load’s feet kept dragging and his whiskers hurt my neck.
We soon found that this is where teen-agers go to stand in line for hours and compare body piercings and tattoos. This was the first time I have ever seen a person with a chrome-plated cannon ball on a stick stuck through their tongue. I did not know the human ear lobe could support as much weight as I saw on some of these kids.
I soon found a beer vendor that often wandered off to look down the front of some of the young ladies shirts and I could sneak a re-fill while he was other wise engaged. After an hour or so of this, I had enough liquid nerve to ride in a machine that looked like a cross between a huge commercial clothes dryer and a rock crusher.
I went to stand in line, but since I had no piercings or tattoos to compare, and everyone wanted to see an old man (read over thirty) ride on this apparatus, I did not have a chance to sober up and regain good sense. I was strapped into a seat by a kid that had half inch flat washers in his earlobes and a ring that would fit on a Ford 460 piston in his nose. After that, things got a little blurry. I do remember re-living my life 3 times completely and once to age 41. One of the kids next to me peed in my pants.
As soon as I could, I went to find my wife and kids over next to the grown-up rides.