Sup'Man!

Yesterday we took a much needed day off (my first in 14 days.) The other sales reps and I decided to trek down to Six Flags and blow off what we refer to as "the month where no one made any money."

My slight fear of heights had me as the object of everyone's laughter (as well as the butt of everyone's jokes.) Apparently not everyone gets off the roller coaster and visibly shakes for minutes afterwards. But, be proud, I rode every roller coaster that was open: I looped the loop, free fell from amazing heights, and then we saw THE SUPERMAN.

I wouldn't even categorize The Superman ride as a roller coaster. The best I can come up with is "Jamie go fast and high and head almost went boom." That was about the extent of my English afterwards. My body's shaking also created a bit of a studder.

Let me take a moment and describe this monster ride which makes me swear that they hire psychotics to design these things. You sit in a chair that is suspended from a single rail. Oddly enough, this was the most comfortable ride of all the things I was strapped into that day. They lock you in a shoulder harness that comes over your shoulders down to your stomach. In addition, the harness has padded fabric that covers your entire chest. This should have been my first warning sign. I didn't notice the weird bondage ankle cushions, that when they lock your shoulder harness into place, metal plates also cuff your ankles into place, so you can't move your feet. Thus is the occurrence of warning sign number 2.

The attendants then walked around and removed the shoes of anyone whose shoes weren't tied or weren't strapped around the ankle. These people had to ride barefoot: warning sign number 3.

Once everyone was bonded into the chair (which was a 5 minute process) the floor drops away from you: my heart went with it. Next the chair your strapped into similarly to the electric chair swings back so that your back faces straight up and you are looking at the ass in front of you. It felt like some weird sexual position. Now I understood why they strapped your feet in. At this point I was so far away from warning signs that my body was in full survival mode.

We pulled away from the station and I realized that we're going through this head-first. I was told I chanted "I changed my mind I changed my mindIchanged mymind" while we were climbing the first hill. And, holy crap, we were off. Loose change was flying and Ben, Casey, and I were doing corkscrews, looping, and at one point, lying on our backs staring straight at the sky with no roller coaster in sight. Oh Holy God. Next time you see a Superman cartoon, watch him fly because that's literally what we did.

I screamed so hard and so loud and so violently that Casey and Ben were cracking up throughout the whole ride. All I could hear was my own shrill screams and Casey's cackle.

The ride stopped and my heart was somewhere below: it had long since fallen out of my body and now lies on the ground at Six Flags, still beating so hard I could feel it even though we were dangling in the air while the next people were still loading in the second set.

We pulled back in the station where our seats swung back down and our asses were no longer jutting out in the air. When the floor rose back up to meet us, I fell out of the chair and stumbled to meet the smart people of our group who chose not to ride The Superman. (Earlier they experienced much taunting from my end.) My body was shaking and my eyes were tearing and I couldn't find my heart.

That is no roller coaster, my friends.