Six Flags Trip

8:26 PM

Just so everyone knows, I'm a Master of the Sledgehammer. You need something sledged? I'll get all up in its grill. It won't know whether I'm coming or going. I'll sledge the ever-loving fear of Jesus into that thing.

I had to take down all this wooden fence today because it's all being replaced with chain link sometime later in the week. That's not an easy task. Luckily, whoever erected most of that stuff didn't bother to concrete in any of the posts, so the work wasn't completely impossible.

Still, stuff like that tries my patience. It's even more unnerving because I always feel weird about being pissed off at inanimate objects. And everyone else feels weird about a guy who keeps hitting a piece of wood with a hammer and going, "I keel you! I keel you!"

Those big fence posts are bastards. Seriously. I had to yank every one of them out of the ground. The ones that I couldn't pull out I just used sheer brute strength to knock over. So now I have bruises all over my chest and upper arms from where I kept pushing on the weaker posts.

I'd like to say that I did all that to look like a hardass, but there's nobody to impress, and it hurts a lot. Plus, it's hotter than the surface of the sun outside, with humidity hovering in the vicinity of 99.8%, so I'm not even in the mood to Hulk Out.

Six Flags

As I said in my last entry, I went to Houston last weekend for fun and adventures at Six Flags Astro World with my friends.

I rode every ride, even though some of them looked as though they would kill me, just because I never puss out on a rollercoaster.

I even rode the Texas Cyclone, a wooden doomcoaster that was being supported with rotted driftwood that shimmied and shaked every time a new train of cars careened overhead, possibly on their way to oblivion. This ride looked like it was about about to disintegrate at any moment - I'm really surprised it's still in operation. Rachele kept insisting that they had "redone it" over and over, but I don't count the freshly painted handrails I experienced in the line leading towards the Great Beyond in the Cyclone's refurbishing construction.

So it shouldn't come to any surprise that when we visited the booth at the end of the ride that shows our pictures, mine got the best reaction. Joe was smiling and laughing, JoAnn had her eyes closed and teeth gritted, but I, sitting next to her, had a look of the most abject terror you could imagine. My grim, blurred visage was the sort of thing you expect to see on a Vietnam veteran or somebody who's been kept locked up in a madman's torturous basement for several months. I just rode the Texas Cyclone. I won't lie to you on this one, guys: When that decrepit tinderbox of an amusement park ride cracked around me on every new bend, I saw the face of Jesus Christ.

Lee: Hello, Mr. Christ.
Jesus: Yo, Lee. Call me Jesus. Or Jesús, if that's your thing. I'm easy.
Lee: I don't want to die, Jesús.
Jesus:: Listen, it is almost impossible for me to tell you just how cool everything is going to be right now. You seriously need to chill out.
Lee: I feel like Charlie Brown right before the football gets yanked out from under his unsuspecting foot, man. This rollercoaster is bullshit.
Jesus: I think you've led a pretty full life anyway. I mean, did you get to ride the spinning Wagon Wheel?
Lee: Hell yes I did. Wagon Wheel for life, Jesús.
Jesus: That's what I'm talking about. So it sounds like you've got a clear conscience.
Lee: Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good. Before you go, though, I have to know - What's heaven like?
Jesus: Oh, it's cool. Thursdays nights are Game Nights - we've got Monopoly, Bingo, Chinese Checkers, Twister...I think you'd really like it. There's this guy up there that just gives away snow cones all the time.
Lee: Racquetball?
Jesus: Oh, sure, my Dad loves that game. But I wouldn't play him. I'm not saying he cheats, but he invented Physics. Like, the phenomenon.
Lee: Dually noted.
Jesus: Anyway, I have to go. I'll see you in about thirty seconds.
Lee: ...
Jesus: Is he joking? Ha ha! Well, see ya later.

Any day where I get to have a rap session with The Jesus is pretty cool, I think.

Plus, like I said, I got to ride the Wagon Wheel! Actually, I'm used to that ride being in the shape of a handsome Sombrero, but it's the same principle. It just spins around a lot and tilts. And sometimes it tilts and spins at the same time. Really, it's totally phat. I don't care if the only other people on it are eight year olds.

I almost didn't get to ride it. Everybody was all set to walk right past this ULTIMATE RIDE, so that they could all have some fun on the Lamer Coaster 3000, when JoAnn spoke out for me and told everybody that we had to hit up the Wheel. In her words, "When you thought you weren't going to get to ride the Wagon Wheel your face was like the saddest thing, ever."

I didn't bring my camera with me to the park, which in hindsight was actually a good idea, because I really wouldn't have wanted to lug that thing around all the time - I hate putting all my things in a cubby before boarding each amusement park ride, especially when my things happen to be expensive. So no pictures. But if you close your eyes and imagine real hard, maybe you can see how much fun I was having.

It was also nice to have JoAnn come along. We talked a lot on our various car trips - catching up and whatnot. It was good times.

Of course, things aren't always sunshine and kittens, as I found out our very first night sleeping in the same room. I was settling down for sweet dreams of ice cream and corn dogs when suddenly I heard what sounded like a horrifying train wreck not more than three feet away.

"Snnnnrrraaaaakkk! Snnnrrrr...snrroaaaarrrrrrrr! *hack cough phlegm* Snnnrraawwrrrrrr! SNNNOOOOORRRREEEEEEE!!! *smack smack* Smash Lee with hammer-snnnrrrrrr! *buzzsaw noises*"

I finally got to sleep, but ended up waking in the middle of the night to discover that my brother had hijacked my blanket so he could sleep in the comfortable silence of the bathroom, leaving me alone in Ryan's icebox of a living room, lying nearby an explosion of human sound masquerading as a college-aged girl.

This is actually nothing new to me. I'm not a stranger to girls who walk around like bouncing balls of cute when they're awake, only to transform into some sort of growling monster when they nod off. There's not much you can do in these situations except hope that you fall asleep first.

I tried to tell JoAnn that when she sleeps she begins to emit a humming ray of misery in all directions, but she'd have none of it. Even when I tried to describe the new kind of wheezing snore she created on the second night, she simply put up a wall of disbelief, insisting instead that I snored. Touché.

Next time, Gadget! Next time!

Listening To: SR-71 - Right Now, Frou Frou - Close Up, Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall, The Vines - Ride, A Perfect Circle - Hollow, Duncan Sheik - Barely Breathing, Golden Earing - Radar Love, Coldplay - Clocks, Thomas Newman - Rock Hammer, U2 - Where the Streets Have No Name

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