Weekend Assignment #63: Amusing Amusement Park Moment, from John Scalzi: Recount a notable amusement park experience. No, it doesn't have to be about getting sick on that rollercoaster... although (heh) those usually are pretty good. It can be any sort of memorable moment: cute, scary, funny, nice, whatever.
Extra Credit: What's the scariest amusement park ride you've ever been on?
In maybe 1963, a college friend and I went to the state fair. They had a new ride there, one we'd never seen before, called the "Salt 'n' Pepper Shaker". (They were new then, but common now, under another name.) It was a tower with a long vertical arm that had egg-shaped compartments at either end. The arm spun around vertically, and then the eggs spun, too.
We got in, and off we went. Nobody warned us about our bags, and we were too excited to think ahead. As soon as the fool thing started spinning, the entire contents of my purse and her tote bag fell out, and began to bounce around in the compartment with us.
Now, I don't know why she had them, whether she had won them, or "borrowed" them, or was simply too prissy to eat fair food with her fingers, but my friend had at least four sets of silverware - spoons, knives, and forks - in her tote. There were sharp metal missiles flying at us from every direction.
Every time we swooped past the bottom, we screamed at the operator to "Stop! Stop! Let us out!", but either he didn't hear us, or was amused that we were properly frightened. I suspect the latter, because we got a much longer ride than usual.
We got only a few minor scratches from flying forks (knives tend to fall handle first, thank goodness) from our trip through the food processor. But I think this qualifies for the "extra credit", too.
~~Silk
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