It’s been an interested couple of days in the life of Andrew — an exercise in what I like to call “disastrous fun”:
Saturday:
Saturday started like the night before had ended: me cleaning up my house. A lot of prep work went into getting the house in party shape. I even managed a scenery budget with lighting, cobwebs and even a borrowed smoke machine. I had been billing this before hand as the “social event of the season” to my friends (yeah, I let my ego get a bit into the mix) and had been personally looking forward to this party since the begining of the month.
About an hour before game time, I started putting on the world’s most half-assed halloween costume, a vampire who’s molded plastic fangs wouldn’t even fit to his teeth. And what vampire have you ever seen with a white-boy ‘fro? If my hair were just a wee bit longer it would have laid down and everything would have looked great, but not this night.
The party officially started at 9, but the first guest didn’t pull into the house until half past, with more following about every 15 minutes thereafter. Of course, that gave me ample time to get started on my Rolling Rock drinking.
But with the arrival of the guests came the naturally inevitable group segregation. People stayed with those they arrive with, as I tired to bounce back and forth and make sure everything was fine. Eventually I started to fall into a rhythm of how long to be in one room and when to move onto the other.
Things slowly started souring on my night. Hint one that it would be something to shake my head at in the morning was when I took out a lamp shade while trying to move about. That one was more the fault of trying to move about in a condo filled with a full-sized house’s worth of furniture and tons of people than me being blasted.
A little history lesson for those of you who weren’t here last year: We all thought that Andrew had learned an important lesson about the wrong way to mix liquor and beer. And to my credit, I was sticking to my guns through most of the night. But eventually I put back enough beers to not realize I was drinking soy milk hot chocolate that had been mixed with Butterscotch schnapps when it was handed to me later in the evening.
The Schnapps family are real assholes to me. I’ve never gotten along with any of them — peach, pepermint, butterscotch…none of them.
Shortly thereafter, I began running on auto pilot. The people at the party had started to spread out a bit and leave the sanctuary of their pods (or prides, or groups…whatever you want to call it). I had taken the time to hook my iBook to the stereo so there was plenty of music, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. But I was spiraling quickly out of control and I didn’t even know it.
There only two thing I remember from that point of the night on was hanging over the toilet and my head hitting pillow. Everything else is just gone.
Sunday:
I had this strangely serene feeling when I woke up, like the calm after a hurricane. I felt like Rip Van Winkle coming out of his 20 year nap to find that the world had changed around him. Dark was now light, a garbage can and glass of water had been left by my bedside, and I was sleeping with my camera jabbing me in my hip.
Not quite the way I wanted to greet Sunday morning.
It wouldn’t be until Monday night that I’d find out just how bad things had gotten. Many apologies to my Sister for putting her through the ordeal of babysitting me again and to those of you who got all dress up and attended only to watch a 1:30 flameout by yours truly. I’m sure I’ll have many months to try and live this one down — it’s the natural order of things and to be expected.
At least house wise, things were in relatively good order in the mess department thanks to some good friends who took the time to help straighten up before they left the night before (Do I have great friends or what?). But on top of in-house cleanup, I also had to haul trash and weeds the neighbors and winds had piled into my postage stamp sized backyard over the past two years.
I even got off easy in that department, as good friend Sue stoped by to help me clean, on the condition that afterwards I go with her and some of her friends from work to Great Adventure. Hmm…lemme see…get help cleaning AND go on roller coasters. Give me a minute to think about…YES!!!
Of course, even that got off to a rocky start. We had gone under the assumption that arriving after 4pm on a Sunday was half priced admission, which is true ONLY if you have a Coke can or some PathMark coupon. And being a Pepsi drinker myself, I was shit out of luck. So I plunked down the insane amount of nearly $50 to get into the park. What a fucking racket they having going there! The mob should be so ruthless!
(Aside: If you ask me, I think they would do much better if they just had a pro-rated admission policy. Of course that is a pipe dream, but wouldn’t it be nice?)
For a few moments we stood there wondering if it would be worth paying the insane asking price, but we just gritted our teeth and opened our wallets — we had come this far, why stop now?
So we paid and entered the frey of Fright Fest.
We passed all sorts of park employees dressed as zombies, carrying around shovels and chain saws (sans chains). First stop on the list was the mega coaster known as Nitro, but the park was absolutely packed at that point and the line to Nitro stretched well out of sight of the entrance. Fuck that, we didn’t shell out all that cash to sit on hour long lines! Guess it’s onto plan “B”.
So what is plan “B”, you ask? It begins with the use of the giant chair swings to spin all the blood from your brain to your feet, or something like that. It’s followed shortly thereafter by a trip down the “Terror Trail”, which is a blacked out, fogged up path where people jump out at you and make loud noised with things like garbage cans and shovels.
It can also include coming out of said Terror Trail and scaring the daylights out of a bunch of Eminem-looking clones walking like they’re the kings of all they survey and nothing can stop them. All it takes is to walk by without making eye contact and then at the last possible second turning and screaming like a madman at them. Boy, did they ever jump!
I don’t think I caused any harm there…just another crazy amongst a world of crazies. Besides, it was Frigth Fest — part of the reason everyone was there was to be scared a little.
By this time, plan “B” shifted to it’s final phase: The Great American Scream Machine, a ten minute wait and the first true adrenaline rush of the day. Mmmmm….adrenaline. That’s was one coaster down. I figured another four or so and I’d be able to live with the ticket price.
Next stop was Medusa where we found…another hour long line. C’mon man, you have to be kidding me? We didn’t even bother standing around and instead moved onto The Runaway Mine Train, which was the first coaster I ever went on last time I was at the park, some 7 or 8 years ago.
In fact, the Scram Machine / Mine Train combo was the same two coasters I went on the last time I was at the park, some 7 or 8 years ago. It was a wierd sense of deja vu and all,but I digress.
We then cut back to the center of the park to meet up with some other people to add to our group and got a chance to observe the park employees screwing with the minds of the guests and traumatizing small children for many years to come. One freakish girl holding a stuffed black cat keep going around shouting “Do you want to pet Fluffy?” in a voice just this side of nails on a chalkboard. She got right up in my face, so I just stared back at her. The next few minutes were filled with here repeatedly asking my to pet her cat and me just staring vacantly at her. She eventually got the point and moved on.
Then there was the man with the pet spider on a leash. For a dead guy, he was rather nice. ^_^
But out of all the freaks, there was one in particular who was an expert in the art of scare. He said not a single word, just quietly crept up on groups who weren’t paying attention and just hung over them. Eventually someone would turn around and get the fright of their life when they found a member of the living impaired right next to them. Classic!
Next on the list was another of those never though I’d go on in my life rides, Stuntman’s Freefall. The trip to the top was just as quick as the fall to the ground, and I can’t remember if I heard the buzzer signifying the drop, but my word what a rush! Zero-G’s has a rather strange feeling to it…frighteningly addictive.
As icy darkness started to grip the park, we headed over to Batman The Ride, one of the shortest rides of the night, but damn if it wasn’t intense. I just wonder how much better it would have been in the front seat and with a little daylight so I could see just how many times I got flipped around in the hanging chair (I lost count very early on).
We still had about a half hour or so before we had to leave, so we walked past Nitro on our way out to see if the line from earlier had gone away. Sure enough, there was only about a 20 minute line left. So on we got and up we went. And then there was that first drop….
Straight down.
I was not expecting THAT one. The Zero-G feeling lasted even longer than Freefall, and then there were all the camelbacks and the hammerhead loop…drool. When we pulled into the station, I just wanted to pull the harness down and ride again. Take that acrophobia! ^_^
I stepped off the coaster a little wobbly, thoroughly frozen and with a smile from ear to ear. After that ride, I was satisfied that I had gotten my money’s worth for the half day. All that was left to do was take the hike over to the far end of the parking lot to get to the car and go get some grub (hey, I paid way too much for that ticket and I’ll be damned if I drop another dime inside that park for crappy food).
Dinner took place just up the highway and on the other side of a park-educed traffic jam at The Inn At Millbrook (at least I think that was the name). Good food, nice portions and some soothing jazz for me to listen to (because I had to deal with top 40 crap the rest of the ride home).
So there you have it, from excess in the worst way to excess in the best, this weekend past will be one I’m hard pressed to forget, or in the case of the Butterscotch schnapps, remember.
