I hated rollercoasters.

I hated rides.
I hated speed.

When I was younger, I always attended this carnival/fair thing in the Chicago area. It was identical to, maybe the “younger kids” section of Six-Flags, only this was near a parroquial school. This carnival was a bit larger than larger than that. I was maybe 10 or 11 years old. It was the summer of 2011. It was a pleasant and breezy 82 degrees fahrenheit. My unusual attire for that day was khaki cargo pants, a T-shirt that said Science Club, and plain black gym shoes. One of the only reasons I come to these kinds of thing is because of the lack of saying “No” to my parents (It’s a lot easier for me now). I was chubby back then (I still have some of that flab) and I was not “athletically inclined.”

So, I went with a friend from church (I didn’t have a lot of school friends at the time), and his family. Let’s call him “Dennis Terranew.” I would call him by his real name, but he’d be pretty miffed if I did. This is his Facebook name (don’t ask me WHY he changed his name on Facebook, ‘cuz even I don’t know). My attitude was always jovial towards him, although most of my memories consist of his constant put-downs, rub-ins, and everything in between. What can I say? He was in 6th grade at the time. Dennis is a sophomore in High School.

To this day he still won’t admit that I am better than him in many ways, but that’s not the point.

The point was, our friendship was basically built upon insults (great idea, right?). We still are pretty churlish when it comes to this subject, but, friends nonetheless.

So as we cruised around the carnival, something our eyes.

It was sort of like a chair in the shape of an egg that was rounded and hollow on the inside. The seat inside was also curved. When inside, you are spun around on a conveyor belt, but it was curved on one side, so it would spin you around so much that it could make you sick. But that only worked when there were three people to a seat. There were two of us. We attempted to spin when we hit the curve, but we never succeeded.
We went looking for a challenge, something that would make us scream. Suddenly, it appeared.

“Zero Gravity.”

A large, green, circle, almost like a donut, with a hole in the center overshadowed us. It was broken up into many sections, wide enough for a middle-aged adult to fit inside. 

My mom was hesitant on letting me on. She knew that I had asthma, and I could get an attack by hyperventilating, and there was very few she could do if I did have an attack.

Dennis seemed to read her mind. “Don’t worry Edith, it’s really all about strength. It’s not much.” She seemed to agree. Geez, Dennis could make any girl sing his tune, even my own mother.

I stood in line, watching the smiling faces of the children spinning inside the green donut thing. I wanted to be happy too. I wanted to be like a regular kid just like them. But what if I did have an attack? That thought put me on edge.

Mom grabbed my arm, and whispered in my ear, “Do you really want to do this?” I glanced at Dennis, who gave me a death stare that said “Don’t be a chicken.”

“Of course I do mom! Let’s go!” I yelled effusively.

I strapped myself in. Well, maybe not exactly “strapped” in. More like, “loosely secured.” The only thing that was keeping me on the metal death trap was a thin, flimsy, velcro tape...thing. I can’t even describe how frail the thing looked. I tuned in to the chatter below me.

“That was sickening!”
“Dude, I don’t feel well.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a screw loose.”
“I almost fell off the piece o’ junk!”
Fireworks went off inside of me. Before I could even get the velcro-thing off, the donut started to spin.
And spin.
And spin.
And spin.
It wasn’t that bad actually. It was very pleasant in my opinion. I laughed and smiled. I was scared for nothin’! I thought to myself.

“Jinx”.

That was the only thought that flashed through my head.

Suddenly, the donut went from a pleasant horizontal spinning position, to a sickening vertical position. Every time my section was at the top of the wheel, I felt like I was floating, and about to fall to my death. Everything was slow motion at the top, and then as I got to the bottom of the loop, my stomach lurched and I suddenly went into hyperspace. This was me through the up-down process;

“Sigh…(gasp) oolp! Sigh… (gasp) oolp! Sigh… (gasp) oolp!”

My stomach made the record for most somersaults in a five minute period (I lost count after I hit triple digits).
After the whole fiasco, I couldn’t even walk straight. When the wheel-o-death went back into its original position, I had fifteen fingers on one hand, and there were four or five Dennises. Putting my glasses back on only made it worse.

As I stumbled down the swaying stairs, my mom almost knocked me over with a giant hug.

“CHRISIWASSOWORRIEDABOUTYOU!ITRIEDTOSTOPTHERIDEANDYOUWERELOOKINGSICKAND…” She talked too rapidly for me to keep up.

“It’s OK mom, it was actually pretty fun,” I said as serenely  as I could.
“FUN??? THAT WAS FUN??? YOU NEARLY FELL OFF! I TRIED TO TELL THE GUY TO STOP THE RIDE BUT HE COULDN’T!”
“I’m fine!” I retorted. She just sighed and let go of my arm (which was now black and blue).
“Hey Chris,” Dennis said, “there’s a cool ride that-”
“NO!!” I said, cutting him off. He gave me a weird look that said “Whatever” and strutted away.
I was scared stiff, and to this day I still am pretty frightened. I never made the choice to “prove myself” again.

I still hate rollercoasters.
I still hate rides.
I still hate speed.