Get-to-Know-Jennie Week, Day 3 – Hive and Nest

I do not like the following:

being tipped backwards or upside down

Can you guess where my least favorite place is? If you said “an amusement park” you would be right!  Pick just about any ride and I will most likely hate it.  Maybe I have inner ear problems, I don’t know.

Have you ever been to Cedar Point?  It’s in Ohio and is home to the most awesome roller coasters our country has to offer.  We lived a couple of hours away from Cedar Point growing up and went there at least once each summer.  My dad started out dragging me on all the rides.  After I dissolved in hysterics numerous times he got the clue that forcing me wasn’t working too well (this is a major theme running through my life.  Forcing Jennie is not advisable).  From about age 10 on, the family understood that I would stand by each ride’s exit and wave happily.  I was perfectly content to people-watch and eat cotton candy.

Sometimes I would be fooled into riding a scary ride.  The various “log rides” always suckered me in with those harmless-looking dugout canoes (no shoulder straps!  No seat belts!  They must be safe!)  But three minutes into the ride, once the canoe started it’s ascent (that chick-chick-chick as it inched toward death the drop almost gave me a heart attack every time), I was positive I’d made a hideous mistake.  Even the time that my mother pulled on a black garbage bag with a hole cut out for her face (to protect her perm, of course) didn’t distract me from imagining all sorts of deadly, very painful scenarios.

Every few years I go to an amusement park and think, “maybe it’s different now.  Maybe this time I’ll like roller coasters.”  But it’s not different.  I still hate the feeling of my stomach falling out of my body and my head almost exploding.  (Don’t even try to get me to ride those spinny carnival rides. No amount of cajoling/bribery/threats will get me anywhere near those things. I know my limits.)

I have come to accept my position as the official child-minder at every amusement park.  My job is to wait with all toddlers, scaredy-cats, and too-short-to-ride kids.  I teach them the fine art of standing near the exit, waving to Daddy.