Your Fly Is Down

"Were you neurotic as a child, Paul, or did that onset only happen when you learned about sex?"
Excellent question, introductory sentence.
I'll answer this question with a question:
Have you ever been on Space Mountain?
Not me.
Instead, I watched the line giddily shuffle past me as I remained steadfast at my mother's side.
Good times be damned.
I visited many amusement parks in my youth.
Though they were usually ammusing, I've never been great with rides.
And even as a tyke, my overactive imagination would visualize cars careening off of tracks and rails.
I never got into dirtbikes for much the same reason.
I was into the tapioca rides instead.
"What is that, a tiny novelty train?
Well, all aboard!
Tiny caterpuillar roller coaster for the toddlers?
That sounds okay."
I mean, I would go on some rides.
Scrambler.
Tilt-A-Whirl.
I enjoyed flumes. All flumes.
No safety concerns there.
Straight plummet into a giant pool is fine.
Everyone gets wet. The pictures are real candid.
Great rides, the flumes.
But others would hit a nerve and I'd say, "Nope. Not that one."
The Zipper was an excellent example.
Dennis loved The Zipper (he also owned a dirt bike.)
But he could've goaded me until he passed out onto the fairgrounds.
I wasn't going on The Zipper.
And I never did.
Fast-forward about twenty years.
Andie wants to do a Fall activity.
Autmn makes her insane.
Walking down the promenade she'll suddenly inhale passionately, saying something about the air.
"Smell that fall air!"
I play along, but it smells like oxygen to me.
Fall is whack because I need to dig out jackets and there are deadlines for everything, inexplicably.
But what can I do? She loves it.
I'm due to make scarecrows, for example.
Jam some leaves into my jeans and elastic-off the pant legs, sure.
If this is what has to be done.
About two weeks ago, the fair assumbled itself in Shitty Dartmouth.
As it always does...in the Fall.
So, we walk over to go on at least one ride.
Crossing the bride on foot was ride enough for me, by the way.
Tickets. Junior high kids brandishing too much makeup.
The fair.
5 bucks to whip 3 balls at your last night's empties?
Fuck that.
The fair.
Andie stands at the base of The Zipper and tells me she wants to go on.
So, I explain my (non)history with this ride.

This is not an image of The Zipper we were faced with.
The one in Shitty Dartmouth looked far more neglected.
There's not much else to choose, though, besides The Kamikaze, which looks fucked all together.
Now, I'll mention that it was her idea to go on the wooden rollercoaster in Cavendish.
Then, after getting buckled in, she immediately began repeating that she didn't want to do it anymore.
Too late then.
So, too for The Zipper.
I don't know why they have to make these carnies look so terrifying.
He opens the gate and you think, "How can you possibly fit a stereotype so exactly?
Please, before I put my life in your hands without signing a waiver, please just promise me that you're not drunk right now, this minute."
Everyone shits on carnies for looking like rabble (like I just did.)
Realistically, though, how educated do you have to be to flick a switch?
Most look perfectly qualified.
To be honest, if it was a clean-cut guy in a suit operating the ride, I think I'd find it more unsettling.
Anyway, we're in the cage.
If you're unfamiliar with the interior, it looks like a cage designed to die in.
No straps. Nothin'.
Just semi-standing in this thing.
He closes the gate.
Did you lock that? Alright, if you say so, strange man.
We're both blatantly nervous.
Then he turns it on.
This is just to convey us upwards to load in the next suckers.
Already, Andie is saying she wants off.
I also want off, but it's too late for that.
Regardless, she's asking buddy, 10 feet below us.
"Can you let us out? Sir?"
I tell her that 'sir' probably isn't a term he often responds to.
Might not realize he's the one she's pleading with.
Time holds its breath until he fires this thing up.
Fuck this ride.
Neither of us are enjoying ourselves at all.
Have you been on this thing?
The Zipper is a miscarriage.
It is a car accident that happens to you for 5 minutes.
My phone came out of my pocket.
That was terrifying, but less terrifying that The Zipper, so I only sort of noticed.
Trying to recover it was mesmerizing, as the phone was now experiencing The Zipper, too.
So, it was being shoved in various directions.
I felt like an astronaut trying to get it back in my pocket. 
After 2.5 minutes, it stops.
Pause.
Then it starts up again as I say, "Oh Jesus, it's going the other way."
Which it did for another 2.5 minutes.
The direction change miraculously made it worse.
And still she's asking to get off.
That's my favourite part.
After much violence and churning, it ends.
We're baby deer getting off of the ride.
Disoriented. Confused.
Recovering was strange.
The world took its time getting back to me.
And in the meantime, nothing registered with me.
Like, someone could have walked up to me, removed my wallet from my ass pocket, and two to seven minutes later I'd notice and say, "What the? My wallet's gone."
Anyway, we're never going on it again.
If another Autumn finds her wanting to ride it, I'll make a scarecrow and he can take my turn.