Their First Roller Coaster

Like most girls, my daughters want only one thing: absolute power. I indulged that desire when planning our most recent trip. Earlier this year, I decided we’re going to be a family that goes places and does things—after my wife told me that we need to go places and do things. I can take a hint, as long as that hint is direct instructions. I had to schedule our outings around the kids since they’re involved in an annoying activity called "school" that hogs the majority of their calendar. I suspect that group would have a much lower membership if it weren’t literally illegal not to join. Now that it’s summer, it’s time for the bulk of our planned events. We have one big vacation booked as well as several one-day excursions. This weekend was a particularly memorable one: We went to our first amusement park as a family. I put the kids in charge of everything we did inside the park. Reading that now, I can see where I went wrong. That’s why I’ll never run out of things to write about.

The kids were elated when I handed over control. They didn’t know anything about amusement parks, but they knew everything about bossing people around. I have a household of all leaders and no followers. In these parts, cooperation is a four-letter word. That’s under normal circumstances. When I put them in charge of the trip, however, they were so excited that, for once, they forgot to fight. The prospect of ordering around your own parents will do that to you. The girls studied the park map. They watched YouTube footage of each ride. They read detailed reviews. They charted out the most efficient path through the park to squeeze in the most fun in a single day. Less planning went into the landings for D-Day. Then the kids got to the first roller coaster and everything fell apart.

That part of the story is still several traumas ahead. First, we had to get to the park. For logistical reasons, I decided this would be a day trip rather than an overnight affair. Lola’s one remaining grandparent lives near the park in southern Indiana. In better times, he issued an open invitation for family members to stay at his house when visiting the area. That was my original plan. In recent months, however, his health took a turn, and he’s no longer up for hosting. That’s what we were told, anyway. It’s possible it’s all just a ruse to get out of dealing with my traveling horde. He wouldn’t be the first person to make a miraculous recovery after I ran out of vacation days.

The amusement park is a three-hour drive from our house. Without a family member to mooch off of, staying nearby overnight would have forced us to rent two hotel rooms and eat out for dinner, none of which would be cheap. The sunk costs for the trip were already adding up. I bought four tickets online and got the other two from a silent auction where I drank too much and became too generous. I hate it when alcohol makes me a better person instead of bringing out my inner Grinch. It’s a shame there aren’t any free charity amusement parks run by an order of nuns. Blessed be Our Lady of the Roller Coasters. Adding an overnight stay either before or after our day at the amusement park would double our expenses. Being cheap, I elected to drive there and back in a single day. That meant a six-hour round trip. We would wake up, arrive at opening time, leave at closing time, and get home just in time to go to bed. It was a perfect plan as long as it was executed by unfeeling robots and not squishy humans with unpredictable temperaments. The AI apocalypse can’t get here fast enough.

We managed to leave the house on time that morning, but we set a record for most tears per hour in the process. It was just a day trip, yet we managed to fill the van with stuff. It didn’t help that the amusement park had a water section, which required an outfit change for those of us not wearing our bathing suits all day. Somehow, that translated into an extra thousand pounds of gear. Everyone yelled at everyone else about everything as we attempted to complete the simplest of tasks. By the time the van actually got moving, the last thing any of us wanted to do on this family outing was spend time with family. Thankfully, we had three hours of screen time to cool down. Lola drove while I wrote and the kids watched their tablets. The trip was uneventful other than one brief stretch of road where my wi-fi hotspot cut out and all hell broke loose. Before the kids could resort to cannibalism, we arrived at the park. All of the morning’s animosity was instantly forgotten. It was time to have fun—or else.

As soon as we got through the front gates, the kids took over. They led us straight to the park’s smallest roller coaster, which also happened to be the one closest to the entrance. Everyone else had the same idea. Despite arriving at the park right when it opened, we found ourselves in a twenty minute line to get to the first ride. That gave the kids plenty of time to have second thoughts. All of the children cleared the height requirement for the ride, but my seven-year-old, Waffle, chickened out. Lola took her to some nearby rides for little kids. That left me with the three other girls. We had exactly enough people to fill one cart. My nine-year-old, Lucy, spewed facts about the roller coaster as we steadily moved toward the front of the line. Finally, it was our turn.

That’s when everything went off the rails—but only metaphorically. The ride was perfectly safe. It didn’t feel that way, though. I’ve ridden a lot of roller coasters in my day, and I’ve learned that sometimes, it’s the small ones you have to watch out for. That was the case here. The wooden coaster had railings that felt a bit too close, forcing me to keep my arms and head tucked in the whole time. I love going up and down, but I’m not particularly fond of getting tossed side to side. There was a lot of the latter here. It was a minute and a half of holding on and trying to survive. None of the kids cried or even screamed. They were too scared to breathe. At the end, their opinions were unanimous: They were never going on a roller coaster again.

I tried to convince them that some of the bigger roller coasters were probably less scary than the one they had just endured, but they were having none of it. They were so traumatized that they wouldn’t even try the medium-sized rides. Only my thirteen-year-old, Betsy, was willing to go on the log flume, which offered the mildest of thrills. Lucy wouldn’t even ride a horse on the carousel. By the end of the first hour, the kids had declared that they wouldn’t get on 95 percent of what the park had to offer. We still had eight hours until closing time. Our family vacation was off to a great start.

The good news is we didn’t spend much time waiting in line. The kids were only up for the tamest of attractions, which no other families wanted to do. We were able to go on the bumper cars multiple times in a row, although the kids insisted that we keep the bumping to a minimum. At first, I was disappointed, but I quickly discovered that there isn’t anything particularly fun about whiplash. It was actually more enjoyable to race the cars around the circle like we were driving go-karts. The kids also enjoyed the snow cones and ice cream, which we all know are precious delicacies not available anywhere else in the world. Thank goodness we paid those sky-high admission prices to get in.

After dropping a small fortune on not a large quantity of park food, we put on our bathing suits and headed to the water area. Naturally, my children refused to test out the water slides the park is known for. Instead, they hung out in the wave pool. We have one of those at our local water park, but this one was much bigger. They swam until the water section closed. That left us with a final hour to revisit the rest of the park before everything shut down for the day. We managed to find a few other small rides that didn’t emotionally scar anyone. Then we left, completely exhausted. We made a quick stop for fast food and then drove straight home. We left that morning at 7:45 a.m. and arrived home at midnight. The next day, the kids slept till lunch.

Overall, our amusement park experience was a good one, even considering that we didn’t experience most of it. We managed to keep ourselves busy the entire time, despite not doing any of the attractions that actually attract people. It helped that the park had a few perks that appealed to families like ours. It offered free sunscreen distributed at random intervals from large jugs. We covered ourselves with globs of it every chance we got. We actually ended the day paler than we started out. The park also offered free soft drinks, which was a brilliant marketing move. Soda takes only pennies to manufacture, even if most venues charge two dollars to reap a 99 percent profit margin. We drank a ton of soda and felt like we were getting a good deal while costing the park virtually nothing. I don’t mind being scammed if it means I can ingest unlimited Diet Mountain Dew. The crowning moment of the day was when, with ten minutes left until closing time, both of Lola’s sandals simultaneously fell apart. She literally walked the soles off of them. It’s safe to say she got in her steps that day. For some reason, she politely declined my offer to give her a piggyback ride to the parking lot. Maybe next time.

Most importantly, the day saved me a ton of money. That might sound counterintuitive when I dropped hundreds of dollars for stuff my kids refuse to do, but it’s the truth. I told the girls up front that the day was a trial run for Disney World. I needed to find out if they even liked amusement parks. They don’t, full stop. There would be nothing for them to do at the land of the mouse. They’re too old to care about actors in princess costumes and too scared to ride anything that travels faster than a brisk walk. I can now raise them to adulthood without feeling guilty that we skipped out on the most expensive pilgrimage every family is required to make. That more than offsets the chunk of cash I dropped this weekend. Sometimes, the experiments with negative results are the most valuable ones of all.

I now know that my kids’ ideal day would be an afternoon at our local water park followed by a cooler full of ice cream novelties. I could give them the happiest experience of their childhoods for less than thirty bucks. The best part is I can do that on a weekly basis from now until the start of school. I can write in a pool chair while they swim. It’s the perfect arrangement. The only downside is I made this realization after I booked a summer full of other activities. We have a few more big outings to endure. After we get through those, however, it will be all local pool trips all the time. Sometimes you have to waste money to save money. Give my regards to the mouse, everybody else. We’ll be staying much closer to home.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time.

James