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Noodles: The Circle(s) of Death.

The first, and only, time my parents took me up in a Ferris wheel, I cried (a lot).
Now take that sentence and replace “Ferris wheel” with every other nausea-inducing motion device you can imagine, and you’ll have, in a nutshell, my experience with theme parks and carnivals throughout childhood.  Throughout my teen years as well, except my parents got wise sometime around my tenth birthday and never took me anywhere fun ever again.
Basically, carnival rides, water slides, roller coasters, and related torture-mechanisms are not my cup of tea.  Once, it took three grown adults (redundant, but redundant with purpose, for emphatic emphasis) to pry my apparently heroically-muscular fingers from a safety rail at the top of a water slide.  It took them literal minutes.  I’m actually a little proud of that.  How many seven year olds have “heroically-muscular” anythings?  
Another time, though I’ve mostly blocked the circumstances from my memory, I screamed so much on a ride that my parents had to beg the attendant to shut it down before I hyperventilated myself to an early grave (note, hyperventilation is more deadly than your average roller coaster).  They were humiliated (My parents and the attendant.  Basically, everyone within three miles was humiliated).  
In general, I’ve always preferred rides that move at a sedate pace and resemble horses or other friendly animals.  I see nothing to be ashamed of in this, and remain perplexed at my adult friends’ small enthusiasm when I suggest a spin on the merry-go-round.  Someday I will have children of my own and be able to enjoy such rides vicariously, or as a “good parent” who “does things with her child out of the goodness of her heart”, but in the meantime, I only have two options.  

1.  Avoid carnivals by any means possible, which is a weak plan because I really really really love merry-go-rounds.  OR, more practically,
2.  Fake sudden death while waiting in line for the Spin-Until-Your-Brain-Comes-Out-Of-Your-Mouthtm, and let my friends ride the ride without me while I lie happily motionless under the coroner’s blanket.  

Problem solved.


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