It’s only Wednesday, but it’s already been kind of an intense week. You may have noticed me failing to respond quickly by email, help you migrate your hotmail contacts, or join you in watching movies in which David Bowie magically inconveniences teens. I apologize. There’s a deadline looming, and consequently I’m wasting a lot less time on the internet and elsewhere than I’d like. But I can still dimly recall a time when my life wasn’t solely devoted to building doomed UGC also-rans.
And part of that time was spent at Six Flags, as Emily and Michael already recounted. I really had no idea that a bona-fide amusement park was accessible by DC public transportation. The last time I went to the park it was still called “Wild World” and didn’t have much in it except a single wooden coaster and a lot of bored birthday party attendees.
Things have improved since then. If the rollercoaster and hour-long medical drama industries are any indication, humans really enjoy the sensation of finding out that they’re not going to die after all. In fact, the only sensation they seem to enjoy more is learning that somebody else is, or at least is about to have a very bad time (this is why there are more crime procedurals than hospital dramas). Under Dan Snyder’s thoughtful/big-spending leadership, the park has recognized this first important truth and blossomed into a wonderland of not-quite-deadly steel contraptions.
Superman: Ride of Steel was probably the best coaster we went on, although the still-unridden Batman attraction seemed to break down with enough frequency that I think it must be particularly fun. The Tower of Doom was also pretty great: it just picks you up and drops you, cutting out the artifice and leaving riders strangely silent as they shuffle toward the exit.
The service left a little to be desired. It seemed like every employee had reported for orientation that morning — the atmosphere of the place can be summed up by the phrase, “Oh, that’s what that button does!” This was mostly fine, though, as it meant that the employees were less beaten down by their awful summer jobs than one might expect. Tempers briefly flaired when it became apparent that each $25 cheese pizza ordered at the Papa John’s counter was going to be meticulously made to order. Otherwise, all was well.
So I’ve got to give Six Flags a thumbs up. The lines were short, the beer was merely ballpark-priced and the waterpark had relatively few free-floating bandaids. Oh, and hey! I took some pictures:
I can verify from personal experience that the employees did, in fact, start there that morning. My fraternity used to work occasional days there, like at Frightfest in October, and they would put us through a solid 30 minute training before putting us in control of so many lives. The training video was entitled “Five Banners” (clearly inferior to 6 Flags) and was a rather amusing highlight reel of what not to do.
One memory that stands is when my friend was operating a roller coaster and had us cut the entire line, and then have everyone standing in it give us a round of applause for our duties as “official ride testers”.
So yeah, be wary of Metro-accessible amusement parks, camp grounds, and other recreational destinations.