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Monday, September 06, 2004


The cruelest inch 

I'm back. and exhausted. and I have blisters on my feet.

HOOORAYYY! another succesful vacation.

Cedar point was fun for the most part. I relented and bought an overpriced disposable camera to take pictures with. But now you'll all have to wait until I get them developed to see them.

Since we were there on weekdays at the end of the season, the park wasn't at all crowded, and only the newest rides had lines. The weather was sunny but not hot, perfect park weather. We stayed in one of the cute little cabins owned by the park - within walking distance of Cedar point and Soak city. hehe, I haven't been to a water park in YEARS! So much fun!

Entering rant mode.

There was one thing that left a big dark blot on my vacation. Cedar point has two new rollercoasters. The Millenium Force and the Dragster. Millenium Force is a huge and fast rollercoaster. Nothing but good reviews. Dragster is one of the scariest looking things I've seen in a long time. It takes you from 0 to 125mph in about one second, shoots you up a track that goes straight up in the air 420 feet, over a hump, then straight down. And when I say straigt, I mean 90 degrees. Perpendicular to the ground. It looks awsome. And no weenie "over the head and shoulder" lockdown supports, either. There's a seatbelt, and a bar that locks down over your lap, and that's the only support you get.

A little back story. Apparently, at some park in new england, a fat guy got on a rollercoaster and was having trouble fastening the seatbelt. The park worker forced the belt in and sent the ride on its merry way. The strain on the belt was so much that during the ride, the belt broke, the fat guy fell, and died.

Major amusement parks response to this tragedy? Did they make the belts a little bigger to accomodate more people? Did they add more supports in as fail safes?

No.

They SHORTENED the seatbelts, and made a rule that they had to be able to fasten them, and then tighten the belt so that at least one inch of excess was visible.

Result?

I was unable to ride either the Millennium force or the Dragster because I am too fat.

I have never been so embarassed in my life.

There may be some of you reading this thinking "well, chubbo, better lose the pounds! serves you right for eating too many twinkies!"

for the record, I don't eat twinkies.

I have been overweight my entire life. It's taken me a long time to come to terms with it. It's only been in the past few years that I have allowed myself to look in the mirror and think "I am beautiful" blah blah, I've blogged about this before. But I have never let being overweight hold me back. I've played sports. I've gone hiking, whitewater rafting, skiing. While I may have struggled a bit more to accomplish these things because of my weight, I have never been told that I couldn't do them because of my weight.

And I'm definatly not in the morbidly obese catagory. I know I should lose weight, and I'm working on it. But it's not like i have rolls of leg fat obscuring my ankles, or anything (shudder!). I'm pretty much on the lower end of the fat crowd. By shortening the seatbelts, Cedar Point has prevented a large (haha, pun intended) percentage of the population from riding those coasters!

Fortunately, those two rides have "test" seats at the start of the line, so you can sit in them and make sure you can fit in. That at least saved me the embarassment of finding out in front of an entire line full of people. I was about an inch short of getting the seatbelt clipped. Cruel fate. Kevin, somehow, squeezed himself into Milenium force, while I shopped around the frotier village shops. While his belly is bigger than mine, his hips are narrower. Damn womanly figure! He tried later to blow it off as no big deal, but I could tell he thought it was great. Later he asked if I would mind him going on the dragster, and it was just too much for me. I told him fine, I'd meet up with him later, but he realized how upset I was and said forget it. What was I supposed to say? "Yes dear, please by all means leave me alone again while you ride another one of those awsome rides that your fat girlfriend can't. I'd be thrilled if you did that. Be sure to wave at me from the top!"

To top it off, you can see the track for the dragster all over the damned park. So no matter what ride we were on, I could see it looming over me, taunting me.

So that was the big blot on my vacation. Not too terrible (oh poor baby, couldn't ride 2 of the many many rides at cedar point, boo hoo!). A good time was had by all, and that's pretty much all that counts anyway, right?

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