A Day at Six Flags or Waterboarding? Tough One

 by Roger White

Spring break was winding down and nothing of major importance in the house had been destroyed, the trees in our front yard had remained free of toilet paper, the police had not been called all week to my knowledge, and no one near and dear to me had been injured, died, gotten pregnant, or been hauled to the slammer, so as a reward the wife and I decided to take our lovely daughter and a friend of hers to the nearest Six Flags amusement park. Sweet Jehoshaphat, what a knucklehead idea that was.

First off, it was the last official weekday of spring break. And it is common knowledge that every set of parents in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and some regions of Guatemala clings to the belief that a weekday at a major amusement park will be considerably less crowded than a weekend day. We all truly think that we’re the crafty ones and will outsmart all those dimwits who go to the park on a Saturday or Sunday. Hence, everyone piles into the park on that final Friday, making the Six Flags experience not unlike rush hour on a Shanghai subway.

Using this reasoning, I would bet good money that the park is largely abandoned on any given Saturday. But don’t quote me on that.

Anyway, we elbowed our way in after almost an hour at the front gate only to find that waiting time for 99.38 percent of the rides was approximately three weeks. Additionally, lines for the bathrooms, concession stands, souvenir shops, park benches, first-aid stations, oxygen tents, and suicide counselors stretched from west San Antonio to one block from the Alamo. Just about the time we realized this, we body-surfed the crowd to a place called the Flash Pass Booth.

Are you aware of what’s transpiring at your friendly amusement park these days? For a fee—and I mean a big, fat fee—you can essentially pay to cut in line. And yes, the line to buy one of these legal cheating devices was down the hall, around the block, and straight on ’til morning. I fully expect within the next year or so that the corporate minds at Six Flags will open another booth at which you may purchase a Flash Pass to cut in line at the Flash Pass Booth. And so on.

Get this, they even have levels of cheating. A Standard Flash Pass is not much better than the common rabble. With a Gold Pass, you move darn close to the front of the line. Platinum—well, you’re practically Charlie Sheen here. You can ride twice in a row, kick dirt in the face of one schmuck of your choice still waiting in line, and get your shoes shined while you ride. I predict the eventuality of the Michael Jackson Pass or some such, wherein you own the damn park and can tell everyone to get lost. This pass, of course, will cost you approximately the Gross National Product of Great Britain.

The whole concept sickened me—almost to the point where we didn’t get one.

For a good chunk of our daughter’s college fund, we were given a handheld doodad that looked something like a blood-pressure monitor. In fact, it would be a good idea if this thing could double as one. Mind you, the wife and I passed on the Flash Pass; however, we didn’t want our daughter’s last official weekday of spring break to be spent standing in one spot in the hot sun for countless hours—which is basically what prisoners of war undergo. So off Lindsey and her friend went, happily cutting in line with the full consent and gratitude of park authorities. A democracy this wasn’t.

Now, it’s important that I mention here that to ensure that we didn’t run off with their precious Flash Pass device, the smiling Six Flags people held my driver’s license for the duration of our visit. Why is this important? Because lo and behold, after a nerve-wracking afternoon working our way through a jam of humanity more bunched together and hostile than a South American soccer match, my wife and I decided it was time for a nice, cold adult beverage. Ahh.

So, then we stood in line for a half-hour at the nice, cold adult beverage stand—only to discover that to purchase a nice, cold adult beverage, you MUST HAVE YOUR I.D. No exceptions. Not even for the Flash Pass doodad, which you leveraged your daughter’s future against to purchase in the first place. Plus I haven’t been carded since the Nixon Administration! Are you getting the picture of our day at the Disneyland of the Great Southwest?

After a short interim of choice, creative words at various decibel levels, I marched to our car (parked near the Alamo) to retrieve my wife’s I.D. Then and only then, after another 45 minutes at yet another libation station, did we get to sit down in the shade (night was falling by now), my wife with a luscious margarita, and me with a $9.50 Budweiser. At this point, price was no object. I would have sold my mother for a beer.

And now the topper. Just as we toasted one another with a long, heavy sigh, our daughter joined us, and in her exuberance, promptly spilled my wife’s frozen concoction all over the table. Oh well, there’s always Schlitterbahn.

 

Roger White is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely wife, two precocious daughters, a very fat daschund, and a self-absorbed cat. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com.