A Repertoire Devoid of Rollercoasters

I do not think I will be riding any more roller coasters. For the rest of my life. I haven't ridden a rollercoaster for 15 years. The last time I did ride a roller coaster it was a magnificent, thrilling experience. I have been looking forward to riding another rollercoaster ever since a church youth group trip to a large amusement park at age 13. Things have not worked out, however, and I now fear I am too old. This is not to say that I am not adventuresome enough to want to ride a rollercoaster. The factor that convinced me that roller coasters are probably not going to be part of my middle aged repertoire of activities was my experience driving home from Iowa last weekend with my husband.

My husband does not deaccelerate for curves. The southern section of Wisconsin is very curvy. To complicate matters, my husband took a wrong turn, which put us on the wrong road. The wrong road was also an extra curvy road. It lasted an hour. I became car sick. Although I avoided vomiting, the beautiful scenery was lost on me. I spent that section of our journey gripping the door handle so hard my fingers were white. My face, I am sure, was an interesting collage of various shades of green. If a simple curvy road can do this to me, a girl who loved riding the biggest, scariest rides at the fair, I fear the prospect of amusement park days have vanished. (Especially since I will be older yet by the time we can afford to actually go to an amusment park). I used to relish going to the county fair and courting danger upside down, counting how many times my cousin threw up in one day (he didn't have a stable stomach to start with, and also lacked the common sense not to eat mini fried donuts and cotton candy before embarking on vigorous rides). Now, I lament, the simple ferris wheel is probably more my style. Boring.

Maybe it's age. Maybe childbirth induces some kind of weird chemical that degrades your capacity for extraneous movment. Maybe I'm just getting old. I always wondered why my dad, a big, strong and brave guy got sick on the simple Octopus ride.