Full Immersion

I'm a thrill junky. However, I'm lazier than lazy, so anything that could be termed an extreme sport just doesn't make the agenda. Having mostly aged out of psychedelics, I generally feed my jones by being flung around by creaky metal machines. I'm a sucker for state fair rides, and ones that have a body count get bonus points. What I really love, though, are roller coasters. Oh god, how I love roller coasters.

I got it in my head to take the junior apostropher to either King's Dominion or Carowinds this weekend, since he gets the same thrill from the threat of cracked vertebrae and sprained shoulders. Unfortunately, the really boffo coasters have a minimum height requirement of 52 inches, and the little fellow tops out at 50. Instead, we went to the Emerald Pointe water park over in Greensboro for the day. It was shoulder-to-shoulder up in there and I had a flashback to a day about ten years ago.

My ex-wife (pre-ex at the time) and I had driven up to King's Dominion and it was crowded in a way I'd not seen previously. As soon as we stepped through the turnstiles, the first person I saw was Joe Smith, who had just finished up his basketball career at the University of Maryland and would soon be the first overall pick in the NBA draft. That was pretty cool. Looking around, the crowd seemed much, uh, blacker than usual. Not a problem, but you do notice. Turned out it was Black College Day at King's Dominion and judging by the lines for everything from rides to funnelcakes to urinals, every black college student on the eastern seaboard was there.

Well, as either luck or divine intervention would have it, today turned out to be Christian Youth Day at Emerald Pointe. Again, not a problem, but you do notice. Particularly when the soundstage in the center of the park (conveniently located where you can't help but hear it) is pumping out the whitest, least booty-shaking, Jesus-inspired soft rock you could imagine. They'd drop into unobtrusive grooves in the middle of songs while the singer gave earnest talks about the power of the lord and admitting you're a sinner and, appropriately enough, the cleansing waters of salvation. And all about us in line for the Double Barrel Blast or the Raging Rapids, folks would break out into applause in response. Then the band would swing back into the final impassioned chorus ("He bled for youuuuu-ah!"). I couldn't see the stage, but I pictured the singer with a squinched up face and his fist in the air at this point.

So it was strange. Fun, but strange. Despite my haphazard applications of SPF60 sunscreen (which, before today, I didn't know even existed - I figured burlap would only run about 57 or 58), my back and shoulders are burnt to a crisp. I'd like to say I had some deep insight gained by an entire day of marinating in pools with thousands of bright-eyed Christian youths, but the only real conclusion I came to was this: teenaged girls should wear bikinis every day.