The one thing that kind of sucks about DelGrosso’s (if you’re a motion sickness-susceptible grown-up, which I am finding that I apparently am) is that every single ride—with the exception of the Crazy Mouse, Wacky Worm and the lame-o train—is set up to spin-cycle the shit out of your stomach contents. In fact, the first time we went to DelGrosso’s two years ago, I got so sick after riding three spinny rides in a row that I had to lay down on a bench while everyone else went about their day. It was a pretty ugly blow to my ego.
So my new strategy is to ride one or two rides, eat food, stand around, mock people, and then give myself up to the g-force gods and pray for vertigo asylum.

Chooch does not like this strategy, but luckily, Chooch is now at the age/height where he can ride some of this shit himself. So while I rode the Super Spiral with him once, I was all, “Be my guest” when he decided he was going to ride it three more times in a row later that day.

Even the Pirate Ship makes me sick these days. What is wrong with me!? Dramamine doesn’t help — I tried that at Waldameer last summer and it literally ruined my day.

Chooch was adamant about riding Tilt-a-Whirl car #9, so we ran all the way around looking for it, but it apparently it only goes up to 7.  So then of course we were the only assholes not in a car, totally holding up the ride and I was so pissed at him because everyone was giving us the stink eye. THANKS A LOT CHOOCH.

Meanwhile, check out the kid in Car #3 up there, totally asleep.

I would ride the Tilt-a-Whirl 8 times in a row if I didn’t think my esophagus would make it rain with my potato salad luncheon.

 Judy and I were watching this broad in line for the Paratrooper. She was holding a really small child and Judy scoffed, “I know she’s not taking that baby on that ride. There’s no way.”

But she did and Judy was PISSED OFF you guys. “Oh, this is ridiculous!” she kept yelling. “What a horrible mother!”

To be fair, the sign only restricts “hand-held infants” from riding. Which is still pretty fucked up if you ask me, because even when I ride it with my 7-year-old lump of child-flesh, I’m thinking he’s going to fall out the whole time.

Not this mom! She was taking carefree photos of the kid in flight like it was no big thing while Judy had mom-steam blowing out of her ears.

She also hated some grandma who was miserable and yanking her small granddaughter around by the arm. I think she was actually the mom of the negligent Paratrooper rider. We kept seeing the grandma everywhere we turned for the rest of the day and Judy would loudly announce, “Watch, see if she yanks the kid’s arm again. OH LOOK SHE JUST DID IT! UNBELIEVABLE!” Now I kind of want Judy to have her own Child Protective Services TV show.

Later, I had my own uncharacteristic Maternal Moment in line for the Crazy Mouse.

A small group of young boys of Middle Eastern descent stood in front of Chooch and me. The way the Crazy Mouse is set up, four people can sit in each car, two on each side. However, if a kid is under a certain height, they HAVE to have an adult sitting with them. All but one of the kids in front of us passed the height requirement and they were literally going to leave this little boy (presumably their brother) behind. I did a quick once-over of the benches near the ride and there were definitely no adults that matched this little boy.

He looked like he was about to cry and his group looked like they were probably going to ditch him without a single fuck given.

I sighed and engaged Chooch in a quick side-bar. He shrugged and nodded.

“You can ride with us if you want,” I offered and his stupid little kid face lit up. I had the girl with the yard stick measure Chooch and he was tall enough to sit alone in the seat across from us, so it was decided.

Someone really needs to teach that kid about Stranger Danger.

Anyway, it was the most awkward ride ever, like the time Alisha and I were at the Big Butler Fair and some random child boarded the same unit as us on the Tornado and then smiled at us through the duration of the ride.  There were empty seats all over the place! But I guess I would want to ride with me, too.

This kid kept talking to us and I was like, “Fuck, goddammit. Can’t you just let me enjoy the stupid ride without reminding me that I just wasted 2 minutes of my day being nice to a human?”

[UGH. What is happening to me? The very next day I was walking to the trolley when I saw some old man trying to shut his car door by hooking his cane onto the inside door handle. I helped him shut it because I'm a sucker for an old man (I loved my Pappap, you guys), and now I'm positive Satan is going to send a Mac truck straight into my fucking goody two shoed grill.]

Then his little dickhead brothers RAN AWAY before our Crazy Mouse car pulled back up  to the boarding area and this little boy was so frantic to get the fuck off the ride and find them. Fuckers!

Meanwhile, Henry and Judy had been watching us curiously. I thought for sure I was going to walk right into a conversation about how awesome and Samaritan-like I am, but instead all this succeeded in doing was open the floor for Another Judy Racial Rant.

It’s not what you’d think though. She wasn’t casting 9/11-heavy aspersions or lambasting their religion. No. She was just PISSED because some Muslims live in her building and burn incense and it stinks.

Don’t fuck with Judy’s sinuses, you guys.

I usually have to ride every ride in a park at least once, and I realized that we had been to DelGrosso’s three times and I had not ever gone on the XScream (Chooch kept calling it the “Xtreme” in his post because he refused to believe me when I told him the correct name). Chooch was like, “Hell no, I don’t want to go on that” but I wheedled on his masculinity until he finally conceded. And then as soon as we were strapped in, I turned to him and said, “I don’t know why I made you ride this with me. I hate these kinds of rides” and then we started to ascend so it was too late. Game over.

I swore the entire way up. Why do these rides look not-so-high when you’re on the ground but when you’re on it, it just keeps going up and up and up and what the fuck just get it over with! And then it dropped and in that split second, where your attempted scream is nothing more than a strangulated charade of horrific anguish, I suddenly remembered why I had only ridden Kennywood’s Pitfall in all of the years of its existence. (It’s gone now—good riddance.) And then I also remembered the urban legend of the girl who got scalped on one of those rides when her hair got caught in something on the way down. (Though this apparently did happen on a different ride, thanks Snopes. Now I never want to go to an amusement park again.)

My arms and legs shook for the next 30 minutes. Henry thought this was hilarious, as were the faces that Chooch and I apparently made on the drop down.

 This is how they always look at me. :(

 And then I decided that I wanted to have a Mother’s Day ice cream cone, so I told Henry, “I want to have a Mother’s Day ice cream cone” at which point he stopped the world and bought a Mother’s Day ice cream cone to melt with me.

 MY MOM WOULD NEVER EAT AN ICE CREAM WITH ME ON MOTHER’S DAY.

 Near the end of the day, Chooch and I were in line for the Scrambler when he vocalized his desire to sit in car #1.

“WE’RE getting #1,” sneered the little mother fucker in front of us. Really? Seriously? You were honestly standing here in line thinking that? Fucking douche bag.

Ugh, and he was such a little jock-looking cuntpunter, too. Rage quickly filled up my skin vessle and I began hissing disparaging remarks about him to Chooch. I was STILL bitching about that asshole when we were fastening the seat belt of car #4. “That’s why you should never say stuff like that in line, because there’s always going to be some dickhead who decides he needs to Hoover someone’s joy.”

“OK, just drop it!” Chooch snapped, clearly having moved on from the situation. Probably right after it happened, too. Meanwhile, two days later and I was still spitting slurs and talking about trading him to the gypsies for beads and a jar of pickles. I hate that Chooch is always trying to make me be a better person.

Sorry for being a MOM, Chooch. Jesus!

While this was happening, Henry was royally fucking up the simple task of ordering a funnel cake. I am going to pay him monies (blow jobs, obviously) to get him to write about that himself, though.

 And then Henry won Chooch two stuffed animals which I think is pretty fucked up considering it was Mother’s Day, not Kids Who Have Mothers Day.

Granted, it’s a two-hour drive and a ride-all-day pass is only like $12 normally, but it’s the principle of the fact that I am being rewarded for those nine suicidal months where a fetal Chooch abused me internally and ballooned my stomach out to the point where people thought I was having twins.

Of all the horrors of pregnancy, THAT is the one thing that sticks with me. Vanity wins.

Plus, I was hoping that maybe the Douchebag Doppelganger would be back. You never know – maybe it’s Mother’s Day tradition for his potato sack wife. (“You have problems,” Lee said when I giddily mentioned this possibility to him at work.)

Henry invited his mom Judy to join us, which initially I thought was super sweet until I realized his motive was to hope her presence tamed me. I always try to curb my obnoxious streak when she’s around because I’m afraid she will yell at me. She has never yelled at me before, but there’s always a first time for everything and I don’t know if she keeps a wooden spoon in her purse or not.

I mean, even CHOOCH checks himself around her.

After two hours of me progressively turning up the radio over Judy talking about people I don’t know while admiring the countryside and pondering how people could live out there (“Do they have electricity?” she wondered as we passed a house that had a DirectTV satellite, a swimming pool, at least 4 quads and an SUV in the driveway. “They’re not AMISH,” I answered.), we finally made it to DelGrosso’s.

And it was COLD. Only around 50 degrees, I think.

Since I’m a mom, I didn’t have to get the ride-all-day wristband. But Chooch did, and now he’s winning our weird wristband competition. We keep our fair/amusement park/special event wristbands on until they fall off on their own, which drives Henry absolutely nuts. I wore my Jonny Craig concert wristband for over a month before it finally disintegrated on my arm. My co-worker Pam noticed it one day and thought I had been in the hospital. When I explained it to her, she shook her head and said, “I’d make you take a nap and then cut that off in your sleep!”

We both still have our Knoebels wristbands on (they’re plastic, so these bitches ain’t budging, much to Henry’s chagrin — he takes his wristbands off before we even get to the car), but now Chooch has a DelGrosso’s wristband on his other wrist and I hate it.

Anyway, wristband woes aside, it was a great day to ride shit! It wasn’t crowded at all, not that I have ever seen DelGrosso’s especially packed, so Chooch and I of course ran right onto the Wacky Worm. We asked Judy if she wanted to ride it too since it’s so mild, and she just laughed and said, “Yeah, no.”

Which is weird, because minutes later, Chooch and I were standing in line for the Crazy Mouse (the only ride there that ever really has a line because it’s the motherfucking Crazy Mouse), when Judy sidled on up behind us. I thought she just wanted to chat since Henry had wandered off on his first of 870 bathroom pilgrimages.

“I’m going to ride this,” she said all nonchalantly, causing Chooch and I to laugh. Good one, Judy! “No really, I was watching it from over there and it doesn’t look so bad,” she continued.

Meanwhile, Henry had returned from counting his hemorrhoids and was all, “What is the meaning of this?” At least, that’s what I assume his facial expression meant, but it could have been gas.

“She’s riding this with us,” I said in a “duh” tone with a shrug. So a 70+ year old lady is going to ride the Crazy Mouse, there’s nothing to see here. Go sit down, Henry.

The kids running the ride were stoked that Judy was riding and took extra care with getting her strapped in, which is good because I was like, “I don’t know. Maybe put your seatbelt on?”  I’m not the best when it comes to being helpful. And absolutely no one is surprised.

“This is what you do for your grandkids,” Judy said as our car ascended the inaugural hill. Quick, someone tell my mom that!

Immediately after, Judy went on the merry-go-round with Chooch.

A little while later, after we had eaten (Chooch’s least favorite part because god forbid he has to sit down at a table, and I can relate to that but I have officially reached that age where eating is imperative to help temper some of the impending motion sickness that I am inevitably going to face), Judy said, “I want to ride those airplanes.”

We couldn’t imagine what she was talking about. I thought maybe she had seen some ride in Kiddie Land that she wanted to try, but then as we continued to walk, she pointed and said, “There! The airplanes!”

It wasn’t “airplanes,” it was the fucking Yo-Yo.

Let me tell you something about the Yo-Yo: these aren’t your ordinary amusement park swings. These sons of bitches are SCARY. County fairs usually have the Yo-Yo in their arsenal of death traps. I always feel incredibly unsafe and especially white-knuckled on the Yo-Yo.

But Judy wanted to ride it so I obediently followed suit.

There is this one point during the ride where it waits to pick up a good, semi-whiplash speed before this sickening “whoosh” is sounded and all of the bucket seats TILT BACK to the point where I always feel like I’m going to slide out backward. And I don’t know if it was because it was so windy that day, but we were all literally banging and crashing into each other.

I prayed for the most painless death possible. Please god, fling me into that tree and not one of the  785912 metal spikes around the Yo Yo’s perimeter that are suddenly so apparent to me that I know I AM GOING TO PERISH.

But Judy loved it! Look at her go! I hope I’m as cool as she is when/if I’m a grandma (and I better be a grandma someday because I already have tomes upon mental tomes of incriminating Chooch tales to share with his future spawn).

 ”I rode the Yo Yo better than you!” is what I imagine Chooch is saying in this photo because he makes everything a competition. He must get that from Henry.

 I thought about asking Judy some questions about her day at DelGrosso’s, but if she’s anything like her son, I’m sure it would have been a bunch of monosyllabic answers. I’ll have to get some wine in her.

I did this instead of paying attention to Henry last night.

I want to promise that I’m not going to be super annoying with this new app, but……

In other weekend news, I met up with my friend Kristy for lunch yesterday at the Smiling Moose. We sat at the bar with what turned out to be the oldest/lamest bachelor party ever and Kristy helped me choose beers that I wouldn’t entirely hate. And by beers I mean beer. I got some kind of watermelon ale that didn’t taste like watermelon at ALL but was actually not so bad and I drank it all before it got warm. Well, almost.

Kristy is a legit beer drinker. I feel confident that I’ll never graduate past “Sissy Beer Sipper,” but it’s nice to know that if I’m ever feeling like maybe I want to go out and try some kind of fancy wheat beer, Kristy will make sure I don’t wind up with some frosty glass of 12% swill.

I also had a cider and a mixed drink, and then went to Kohl’s where I “lost my balance” and almost put my head through the fitting room mirror. Thanks for being such a great influence, Kristy!

(The most important part of this post is that OMG I was sitting in the same spot that Jonny Craig sat at when he was at the Smiling Moose in March #%[^[**]]!!!!!!)

Today, we went to the flea market, which Chooch is apparently going to post about at some point this week. (I got a new phone, so he’s been using my old one and took a picture of nearly every cat stuffed animal and cat t-shirt he saw at the flea market today.)

Miserable in his Dance Gavin Dance shirt.

Terrorizing the water reservoir at Highland Park, which I am DISGUSTED by but that’s a post for another day, maybe. Ugh, water things.

Struck gold at the Asian market yesterday so expect a fruit review sometime. And I still have to write about DelGrosso’s from last weekend, Chooch’s pottery piece being in an exhibition thing on Friday, and the fucking vegetarian dinner I went to over a month ago which I started as a draft but just don’t give enough shits about it to finish it.

I know it probably doesn’t seem like it on your end because I’m all POST POST POST, but I’ve been having some terrible blog apathy lately.

I think that’s also known as suffering from hockey tunnel vision. Can’t a bitch just watch the Stanley Cup playoffs in peace, though?

SHE IS JUST SO FLUFFY I CAN’T STAND IT! I demonstrated the other day for Henry how long it takes me to leave work each day because I keep coming back into the house to hug Marcy one more time.

Speaking of, here is a video of her playing with a pencil:

This photo still makes me so happy! Sometimes when I’m having a shitty day at work, I hold it close to my face and start laughing. Aaron was looking at it the other day and just as he started to make fun of it, I said sadly, “That’s my cousin.” He walked away before I had a chance to get into the gory details about how he passed away from complications with his sex-change operation.

I CUT THESE ALL BY MYSELF!! It’s the only fruit I had all week because Henry has really been dropping the fruit ball lately. I tried to buy an apple at a convenience store on my way to the trolley yesterday but the cashier looked at me like I was asking for escargot. Apparently, no, they don’t sell fresh fruit there.

This was Mother’s Day present to myself – new TOMS!

In other news, I’m still laughing at the “Glenn is a lesbian” rumor. It’s either that or continue crying over the Office finale.

And then Glenn walked by.

“We should start a rumor that Glenn is a lesbian,” Barb said. I don’t recall any overt hysterics from Nate or Debbie over this suggestion, but I fucking DIED. I was laughing so hard I had to walk away. Then I realized I had walked into a dead-end, so I turned around and had to find the nearest chair to sit in to keep from showwering my co-workers with gleeful urination.

“THAT IS THE BEST IDEA EVER!!” I squealed once I was able to speak again. I can totally picture him in a flannel and skinny jeans at a Tegan and Sara show, can’t you?!

So I was walking back to my office-thing and saw Glenn sitting all lesbianly at his desk and I lost my shit all over again. Amber2 looked concerned because when I get this giddy, it oftentimes appears that I am under some sort of duress, the kind of red-hued scrunched-up face one might put on immediately after learning of the death of a loved on or Corey Haim. Unfortunately, this is also my Ugly Laugh face.

I tried to explain to her what was going on, but this only resulted in my having to SQUAT DOWN and bury my face in my arms. Every time I opened my mouth to talk, I could only manage to vomit out incomprehensible, muffled sounds.

“I’ll just email you!” I wheezed. Even better is that there is a new processor who just started last week and she sits right in front of Amber2, which is unfortunately pretty close to me, so she gets to overhear all sorts of weird things that may or may not have something to do with weird things and me.

This uncontrollable laughing alone carried on for over an hour without reprieve (for me or those in direct vacinity of me). And then I started telling more and more people (most of whom where like, “That is not really that funny”) so eventually, Glenn was all, “Ha-ha, what is going on?”

This only made the remainder of my sanity expire in a mushroom-cloud explosion of tears and laughter and I had to literally run away from him.

Finally, I emailed him and said, “Barb just wanted to know if you like the Indigo Girls” which confused him even more.

I can’t even look at him now without hearing “Come To My Window” in my head. I tried to get my friend Natalie, whose office is right next to Glenn’s desk, to walk by him while singing the chorus but she was just like, “I hate you.”

I printed this out and taped it to his desk.

This is the best rumor ever! Does anyone have an “L Word” DVD I can put on his desk?

Yesterday, I was rooting around through a bagful of old photos when I found this old gem of me, my brother Ryan and our mom at Kennywood in probably 1986 or so.

I don’t know what happened to the lady in that photo, but I haven’t seen her in a long time.

I guess because it was so soon after Mother’s Day, but it really hit me hard. How did I go from having some semblance of a relationship with my mom to literally nothing at all? I mean, we have no contact. None. I even asked my brother Corey if she ever asks him about me or Chooch and he said no.

She literally doesn’t even ask.

I don’t really know what I’m getting at here. I’m not exactly pining for her, if we’re going to be frank about it. I know that I’m better off without her, and Chooch is DEFINITELY better off without her. (This is the lady whose response to my question of, “Why don’t you ever tell me that you love me?” was “Because you didn’t tell me first!”) But that doesn’t eradicate the confusion I feel about the whole situation and how shitty it feels when you realize that you are literally worthless and disposable to the very woman who brought you into this world. I guess I just want to know why. What changed? What happened to her? I mostly do OK with living my life and not dwelling on this, but holidays—and the accidental nostalgia binge—always trigger my neurotic obsessing and rehashing.

And while I was having a wonderful Mother’s Day with my kid and Henry and his mom, I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of a day my own mom was having — did she sit around and pity herself because she got one less card celebrating her as a “mom”? Does she understand that other women throughout the years have taken it upon themselves to step up and fill that void in my life?

Does she even notice that I’m not around?

And what if this is a glimpse into my future? What if this is the kind of mom Chooch is going to grow up to have? What if I can’t stop it?! During dinner on Mother’s Day, Chooch randomly broke down into tears and wailed (and I mean WAILED), “You didn’t even like the Christmas present I got you!!” which is complete bullshit, and maybe this was spurned by the fact that he was so fucking tired, but you know what? I realized that I couldn’t even remember what he got me for Christmas. Am I just as horrible as my own mom? Because I sure as fuck felt like it at that particular moment.

Maybe I’m not some little kid who needs a mom, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be kind of nice to have one.  I guess my point is, if you have a mom who gives you the time of day, give her a fucking hug every now and again. And an extra one for me, too.

(You think this was whiny? You should have heard me crying about my pinched nerve at work all day!)

When we went to DelGrosso’s mommy really wanted to go on the wacky worm so we did. then we went on the crazy mouse daddy did not want to go on it because he’s such a crybaby because of the big hill. so he didn’t go on anything grandma went on the crazy mouse ;-) twice and the marry-go-round and the yoyo witch is the swings. mommy went on the super SPIRAL and the XTREAM (I put that in capital letters because it’s so XTREAM ) :cry: mommy peed her pants :lol:

ME AND MOMMY WENT ON THE Casino. I got a picture with buddy witch is a bear. Dumb dumb Daddy won me a tiger I named it Tony I won 2 things a fish & a bear. It was mothers day and my mother rules and daddy doesn’t.

I was going to win this game but this stinky lady dumbest lady in the hole wide world cheated for this 4 year old and I was so freaking madddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd the game was called water races.

I like amusement parks because there’s roller coasters and swings and some water rides.

1. I hadn’t been skating since Chooch’s birthday party a year ago, what the fuck?!
2. This was going to be my first time hanging out with Elizabeth, with whom I became blog-friends through Sandy. (Though we did technically meet very quick-like at the Big Butler Fair last year, long enough for a handshake, and then the Wacky Worm pulled me in another direction.)
3. CHOOCH AND I WERE GOING WITHOUT HENRY.

Henry, who has been pulled all over the great state of Pennsylvania nearly every weekend lately, decided that this would be the perfect chance for him to finally get some shit done around the house.

At first I was like, “OMG WE CAN’T POSSIBLY DO THIS WITHOUT YOU HOW COULD YOU ABANDON US LIKE THIS YOU MONSTER!” But then I thought, “Wait….I get to go skating and then come home to a clean house? Tell me more. No, wait — STFU and just start cleaning, motherfucker.”

I think that the fact that Sandy and Elizabeth were going to be there made Henry feel a little more confident in his decision to usher us out the door, nary a compass nor bag of breadcrumbs. Not even a helmet for our precious heads!

Before we could even think about leaving, though, Henry had to go and put gas in the car, make sure we were properly monied-up, and then remind us of our respective skate sizes. It was a pretty large undertaking, but soon Chooch and I were on our way — and I didn’t even need directions!

Sandy and her daughter Elena were already there when we got there, and I proudly told her that Chooch and I had made it there all on our own. Sandy has worked with me for three years now so she is fully aware of my crippling dependence on Henry so it was all Blame Henry up in that parking lot for about 5 seconds and then my excitement for rollerskating eclipsed my abandonment issues.

*****

Parenting

I will say that skating-up took way longer than it would have if Henry had been there. Because when Henry is there, he laces both mine and Chooch’s skates before worrying about his own. Sandy would not do this for us, so Chooch wound up with his skates on the wrong feet, forcing me to rub my Care Bear belly-stretchmarks to radiate some of my dormant maternal magic upon the situation. (At least I put my skates on the right feet.)

I won’t even get into Chooch’s lacing-skills. Anyone walking by would have thought for sure he was an inbreed based on his skate-lacing alone. Jesus Christ.

(Sandy even took a picture of me fixing Chooch’s skates for parenting proof.)

We had barely begun skating before Chooch was all, “I’m hungry, feed me.”

I panicked briefly until I remembered that there was change from our rink admission. So I balled it up into Chooch’s hand and steered him toward the snack room. Thank god he is way more self-sufficient than me and was able to procure his own food. However, he summoned me from the doorway and made me sit with him, which was really annoying because seven-year-olds should be able to eat by themselves. But instead, I sat with him, straining every few seconds to hear what AWESOME POP SONG we were missing but sure to hear 87 more times throughout the day, thanks a lot for having the audacity to be hungry, kid.

He shared his nachos with me, at least.

*****

Socks & Socializing Attempts

Sandy forgot to bring socks so it was either wait for Elizabeth to bring her a pair or pay $2.50 for a pair at the skate shop and god only knows where they get their socks. This was such an epic subplot to the day—would she wait for Elizabeth or go sock-commando and risk contracting some fatal strain of Athlete’s Foot?!— that I might create a Twitter handle* for it.

*(SandysSocks, obviously.)

But then Elizabeth and her husband Mike arrived with a spare pair of socks before Sandy had to resort to wrapping her feet in snack bar napkins. Elizabeth informed me later that it was kind of a big deal that Mike agreed to come because he had some terrible spill at a skating party in 6th grade which was caught on tape and he has never quite healed. So I scratched his name off the adult supervision list.

The problem with meeting friends at the skate rink is that skating isn’t conducive to conversation. At least not for me anyway. Because I like to skate FAST. Too fast to talk!

Sometimes I will slow down long enough to comment on the current song situation though. Like when “Call Me Maybe” was playing, I had to make sure that everyone knew Chooch and I requested it. “Didn’t they already play this?” either Sandy or Elizabeth wondered, and I can’t remember which right now because every time I close my eyes to try and re-picture the scene, all I see are blurs because I skate SO FAST REMEMBER.

(I actually wasn’t skating at Turbo Speed on this day. I didn’t want to die! And god help the poor soul that would have to help lift me off the rink, seriously.)

We mutually decided that maybe next time, we will go out for drinks, fancy food, all of the above.

*****

Roller DJ Reunion

Before I could even consider skating, I had to get my obligatory chastising by Roller DJ out of the way. I mean, he gets angry when I take a season off, so I braced myself for the scathing I was about to get for being AWOL an entire year.

I made up some on-the-spot excuse about scheduling conflicts and sicknesses, and by that I meant, like, the flu, but I guess Roller DJ took it to some terminal level and gasped, “Oh no, I’m sorry to hear that!” So I just kind of ran with that because at least he wasn’t making me feel like a skating poser for dipping out of the scene. He was probably picturing Henry cloistered in a darkened infirmary run by monks, finally succumbing to some disgusting disease he contracted when he was in the SERVICE. Fucking Panama!

Or maybe that’s just me who would picture that.

On the outside of the DJ booth is a big neon-lit sign that boasts DJ Big Will.

“That’s new!” I observed, and Roller DJ beamed.

“I just had it made!” he shouted proudly over throbbing basslines. “You have to like my page on Facebook!” Oh, you bet I will!

Sadly, Roller DJ’s ‘fro is no more. Maybe I should make a Twitter handle for that, too.

*****

Falls

I have to be honest here — I was scared when I first stepped out into the rink. I thought for sure, being out of the groove for a year, that this was going to be the day when the rink transformed into one consecutive banana peel and I was going to have all sorts of bones protruding from my limbs and poor little Elena was going to proficiently skate past this writhing mass of contusions and shrieking curse words and be utterly traumatized for at least the next three years and then will probably forget about it until one day in her twenties when she hears Justin Bieber’s “Beauty and the Beat” on some oldies station in a grocery store and wonders why she wants to puke more violently than people typically do when they hear any song by that dickstick.

Oh, that’s just the repressed images of Miss Erin’s “Grey’s Anatomy”-caliber rollerskating injury that the Biebs is helping you to re-see, Elena.

And oh god, can you imagine if I sucked in front of two people who BLOG? They would have a field day with their “ERIN FELL! READ ALL ABOUT IT!” blog posts. But I wasn’t as rusty as I anticipated! I mean, like Sandy said, I wasn’t wrapping my legs around my head or even at the very minimal doing the jumps during the Cha Cha Slide, but I could probably beat most of you turkeynoodles* in a race!

*(This was my attempt at cutting back on the swears because my vulgarity came up earlier today and now I’m feeling extremely self-conscious about it, fuck. The old Erin would have called you all cuntnoodles. I miss Old Erin already!)

The best part about this particular session is that it wasn’t crowded — it looked like one birthday party was going on and then a handful of inoffensive people. There really wasn’t anyone there that got on my nerves!

Just kidding.

There was some semi-chubby 10-year-old girl in head-to-toe spandex and blond ponytail and I don’t know what it was about her, but she rubbed me the wrong way.

Maybe it was because she reminded me a little bit of myself.

She fell during the Hokey Pokey and I had to summon every last morsel of restraint within myself to keep from publicly heckling her.

One perk of leaving Henry at home is that I was able to freely glide around the rink like the graceful swan that I am and no one could say, “You’re an OK skater, but DAMN—Henry can skate, y’all!”

Henry, Henry, Henry! — whined in the stylings of Jan Brady.

UGH! It gets pretty cold living in Henry’s shadow.

But seriously, aside from all of the skate guards and the two junior derby broads, I was totally the best skater there. Although, there was some older guy in a Clyde’s Auto Repair shirt and feet stuffed into fancy quads who was doing some moderately slick moves, but he fell A LOT and was pretty wobbly even when he wasn’t falling. I mean, I’m sure he was probably real sick in his day, but is pretty washed-up by 2013′s standards. Sorry, bro. I’m better than you.

(This is based solely on the fact that I didn’t fall, even though Chooch kept trying to tell Henry that I did.)

In fact, you can tell that I must have skated without break the whole time based on the fact that I only have one picture from that afternoon. (No phones on the rink, duh!)

There was another dad-type there who flipped over the wall, which was incredibly hysterical and I hope Elizabeth’s husband saw it because that’s gotta make him feel better about his own vintage roller skating birthday party blunders.

You know who else fell a lot? My damn kid. Jesus Christ! I don’t know how we didn’t cap off the day with a Children’s Hospital visit. This is how I learned that I would be a terrible skate guard because I struggled every time I had to help him pick himself back up.

Plus, the whole “lacking compassion” aspect.

Meanwhile, Elena was diligently skating around the rink relatively independently with a skate gate to aid her. (Sadly, she seems like she’s way more independent than me in most life situations. And she’s only 3.) “You skate better than your mom!” I yelled at her encouragingly as I skated past. “Yeah!” she yelled happily. She fell a few times, as kids do, but considering she is already so low to the ground, none of these falls produced any tears. Still, Chooch was all concerned about her every time and had to check for himself to make sure she was OK.

I don’t know where he gets that! Two years of Catholic school, maybe? Nah, those people were dicks.

Maybe if the rink had offered those skate gates two years ago, more people would have skated at my birthday party.

*****

Music

So, my music tastes are definitely pretty off the grid, varying from 80s goth to screamo, synthpop to post-rock, but I do really enjoy pop music. And really, nothing is better to skate to than some bubblegum-poppin’ Top 40. Therefore, I requested “Heart Attack” by Demi Lovato without a single ironic fuck given.

“I don’t have that,” Roller DJ said without apology.

“Seriously?!” I cried. I mean, that joint has constant radio rotation!

“Is this it?” he asked, playing Trey Songz.

“No,” I sighed with attitude.

“Are you sure?” he pressed on. Meanwhile, Chooch had fallen on his hip right outside of the DJ booth and I was struggling to pull up 70 pounds of dead weight while assuring Roller DJ that I was positive it was not the song because that was a man singing and Demi Lovato is A GIRL.

“This is the only ‘Heart Attack’ I have, so it’s gotta be it,” he argued.

OMFG! One is R&B, the other is Pop!!! I was like, “Just forget it!” and skated off.

A few minutes later, the Demi Lovato version came on and Chooch and I cheered. I gave Roller DJ a thumbs up when I whizzed past him and he gave me one of his scary, sly smiles.

Pop music is just really the best music to skate to — it’s fun and energetic and even if it’s fucking Katy Perry, I can usually tune out her shitty vocals and focus on just the beat. I have an unapologetic love for hot pop songs, you guys.

But then the opening notes of the next song trickled out onto the rink and there was a collective groan, which salvaged some of my faith in humanity.

It was Mackelmore’s “Thrift Shop.”

“THIS IS MY SONG!” Chubby Spandex Tween shouted to all of the friends that her parents bought for her. “I ASKED FOR THIS SONG!”

God, I knew I should have heckled her when she fell during the Hokey Pokey.

I don’t know what it is about “Thrift Shop” that makes me want to scream. That’s a lie. It’s the horns, it’s the beat, it’s that obnoxious child voice. I don’t dislike the other Mackelmore songs that I have heard though, just this one.  And besides my hatred for this song, it is really not a good song to skate to.

I guess everyone has that one song (or 50) that they absolutely cannot stand. Janna used to HATE that Billie Meyer’s song, “Kiss the Rain.” I purposely bought the CD (I think this was 1998 maybe?) and put that song on repeat one day when she was at my apartment because that’s how awesome of a friend I am. I even sent her a YouTube video of a live “Kiss the Rain” performance for her birthday the other day.

You know what other song drives me nuts? That fucking monotonous Icona Pop “I Love It” song which of course was played during Saturday’s skate session. Chooch loves that song though, so we always argue about.

“I wish she would crash her car into a bridge,” I muttered after hearing it for the 87th time one day.

“Why?” Chooch asked. “She won’t care.”

OH SNAP, SON.

*****

“So, don’t you and Chooch ever go anywhere together without Henry?” Barb asked me at work the following Monday, when we were sneaking hot beverage and conversation together over by the kitchen.

“I mean, if we have to, but….why would we?” I said with a shrug. Barb made some sort of “Yeah, really” expression and that was the end of that conversation.

En route to Delgrosso’s for some unlimited Mothers Day rides on the Wacky Worm! Henry invited his mom and I am going to try my hardest to get her on the Wacky Worm but I can’t make any promises.

So far this Mothers Day weekend has been the bomb! Chooch and I went rollerskating, had dinner with Janna and her friend Jeremy at Mad Mex, bought myself some new TOMS, and the motherfucking Penguins advanced to the next round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Feeling pretty happy right now except that Henry and his mom are practically shouting to each other in the car which is really upsetting my music-listening.

Should have brought my headphones, I guess.

Happy Mothers Day to all the REAL moms out there, regardless if you gave birth or not!

(OMG WTF is Henry’s mom talking about back there?!?)

Knoebels is an antiquated, beautiful park — the woodsy, old-fashioned kind that are few and far between anymore.  I’ve mentioned this before on the blog, but I really do prefer small, family-oriented parks like this one because that is where you get the weird, old rides. Don’t get me wrong, I heart roller coasters just as much as the next adrenaline junkie, but there is something to be said for entering some creepy funhouse that smells like old All In the Family episodes and moth balls.

I’m not a big fan of riding ferris wheels, but Knoebels had one of the prettiest ferris wheels I’ve ever seen. I think I must have taken a picture of it every single time I passed it—it was the mechanical embodiment of childhood summers.

But again, I did not ride the ferris wheel because I was too busy riding things that were flinging me about like a rag doll. Whiplash never felt so good.

SPOILER ALERT: My stomachache went away after Henry fed me. (And no, he didn’t feed me Rohypnol. This day, anyway.) But first I had to suffer on a bench, alone, while Chooch and Katelyn “panned for gemstones” under the guidance of an old man who really took his position outside of the Mine Museum seriously. (I’m not being sarcastic.) While I was on the bench, I had the opportunity to internally mock a family who tried to ride the Black Diamond only to be rejected because they didn’t have tickets.

Speaking of the Black Diamond — sick ride, bro! It was a dark ride, one of the reasons we were there that day, and it took us on a relatively macabre tour of a mining catastrophe. It even started off with some miner forcefully yanking on his mule’s* rope, which really upset Chooch, so good job Black Diamond! Your work here is done!

*(I knew this was a mule and not a donkey because the Mine Museum taught me so much, you guys!)

There was one especially chilling part of the ride where we passed a mural of skeletal angels lifting away dead miners. (Props to Kari for the heads up on that one!) This was Chooch’s favorite of the two dark rides because it had a couple dips, giving it a mild coaster feel.

Me? I prefered the Haunted Mansion. It was everything a dark ride should be: pretzel car bursting through the entrance door and the momentary panic when your eyes don’t adjust to the sudden darkness,  the sound of gears and chains as your car is propelled around corners, the heart-stopping sensation of having a car horn honked at death metal decibels right up in your grill, the parts that make you laugh (one of the dead props had hideously-sagging boobs, which Henry was obessed with), and the parts that make you wish you were riding with someone you could make out with, or worse. (Read: Jonny Craig. I wonder if his ginger hair glows in the dark?)

Included in our registration fee was an authentic Knoebels late lunch! The  thick slabs of glazed ham and fried chicken, which—and I’m going to Vegetarian Times Hell for saying this—actually looked so super good but I still haven’t completely rejected my anti-meat stance yet. Instead, I allowed a Knoebels worker to ladle some scalloped potatoes and cole slaw onto my bare compartmentalized picnic plate. And it was really good. This is where I learned that I really enjoy white birch beer. I mean, I REALLY ENJOY IT, Dottie.

Then we got to eat birthday cake for the Haunted Mansion’s 40th birthday!

On a sad and serious note, one of the DAFE members had recently passed away. Her name is Tanya and she was supposed to have been there with us that weekend. Being a DAFE n00b, I had never met Tanya, but during our meal, someone stood up and gave somewhat of an eulogy for her, and I can tell you that she sounded like someone I wish I had known: had a love of amusement parks and haunted houses and ran like Hell from chainsaw guys. She must have been so much fun! And it was clear that she was incredibly loved and highly regarded. I can only hope people care half as much when I die. I mean, I had never met her and I was totally welling up!

Afterward, a raffle was going to happen, but Chooch and I were like, “WE CANNOT SIT HERE ANY LONGER. WE WANT TO RIDE THINGS OMG!!” Henry is REALLY into raffles and tried his best to discourage a revolt, but we weren’t playing around. From where I sat beneath Pavilion L, I could see approximately 4.5 rides that I wanted to strap my ass into post haste, and I wasn’t waiting around to hear a bunch of numbers.

Especially since Henry refused to bid on any of the bumper cars being auctioned off. Dickbag.

Chris offered to listen for our registration numbers to be called, so I was like, “GREAT THANKS!!!” and hoped that he heard that over the sound of my feet hitting the pavement. Chris? Bless your number-listening heart. Meanwhile, Henry looked completely defeated, but followed us anyway.

Because really — Chooch and me alone in an amusement park? Not the best idea.

Knoebels has a flying carpet ride, which Chooch and I rode twice in a row. Henry shook his head when he saw that in lieu of rejoining him after the first go-around, we ran straight back into line to ride again. He obviously knows not the gaping orifice left in my heart after Kennywood shipped off their own flying carpet ride, else he’d have understood my urgent need to clean to that swooshing motion a little longer.

That ride is my jam, y’all.

Like so many other parks, Knoebels has their own variation of the log flume called Skloosh, which I actually did not know the name of until just now. I had just been calling it “that log flume thing” this whole time. Anyway, prior to our DAFE meal, Henry had already filled his quota of rides (two wooden coasters and two dark rides — I imagine his hemrrhoids must have been straight up picketing) so he skulked around with my large iCarly messenger bag, pretending to have friends to text, while Chooch and I waited in line in front of a small gaggle of super boisterous middle school boys.

One of them said “shit,” resulting in their Eddie Haskell-esque ring leader to lean toward me and apologize on his friend’s behalf.  I was like, “Oh bitch please, if you only knew the cussing dregs that pour out of this kid’s mouth,” jutting an elbow toward Chooch.

Seriously, that kid’s first word was “asshole.” He calls Bill a “douche cup.” Hearing the word “shit” isn’t going to drastically alter his already-snide demeanor.

Knoebels has one of the last remaining Fascination parlors left in the US. I learned this today by accident when I was Wiki’ing something else. (It’s really none of your business.) Anyway, I wanted to check it out because my friend Kate was telling me about her local amusement park in New York called Sylvan Beach and how she likes to play Fascination and I knew immediately that I needed to see this for myself because one of my favorite Cure songs is “Fascination Street” and what kind of poser fan would I be if I didn’t at least stick one foot inside a Fascination parlor.

So, it’s like a Skee Ball and Bingo amalgamation, right? Totally old fashioned and wood-paneled. Among the strange flea market assortment of prizes were crock pots and LAMPS, you guys. LAMPS. It was a nice change of pace from Bieber posters and stuffed Rastafarian bananas.

And you just put a quarter down and some chick comes around and collects it and then that’s it — you’re playing Fascination.

Henry and Chooch really sucked at it, though. I was really hoping one of them would win me that bantam green chair (pictured above) for my imaginary friend that just happens to double as a dwarf lifeguard.

Man, I bet Henry’s mom was the shit at Fascination back in the day. I’m going to ask her. Anytime I ask her things, she gets paranoid that I’m asking her things.

Chooch made me take this.

After the park closed, the rest of us laminate-wearing DAFE members got to stay for an addition 90 minutes of exclusive ride time on the two dark rides, free of charge. Yay, my favorite part! Flaunting my laminate!

Our group met in front of the Haunted Mansion, where a moment of silence for Tanya was held as the first car was sent in alone, carrying a bouquet of flowers. This beautifully bittersweet moment of silence as we all watched the floral representation of Tanya take the inaugural trip through the Haunted Mansion’s doors…

…when Chooch the Mouth asked in an inappropriately-decibeled voice: “What, did she like, die in the Haunted Mansion?”

Several people near us bristled uncomfortably.

“I don’t know,” I hissed, making throat-slashing motions which is Mom Sign Language for You Best STFU, Boy!

“Then how did she die!?” he pressed on.

It was everything I could do not to stuff the nearest caramel apple pork chop into his yammering maw.

Thankfully, I think the people around us understood that he is just a small kid with legitimate questions and meant no disrespect.

Still, it was pretty embarrassing. Meet your newest members, DAFE!

Before getting into line, we all hunkered down for a group photo which was cool because group photos make me feel like I’m part of something (paying for membership cards accomplishes that, too) and also because there were enough people huddled together that I have hopes the photo will be far enough away that the casual observer won’t notice my cake-rolls.

Afterward, I thought for sure we would all be in full-blown Sweep the Leg, Jonny-mode, clotheslining each other on our wild sprint to get into line. But everyone just walked calmly to the entrance and lined up without acting like the wolves I was raised by.

I was one of the first people in line because I am naturally in a hurry for everything. If I tripped you on my way there, sorry I’m not sorry.

You know what the worst is, when you’re with a bunch of people and they are walking so goddamn slow toward a ride at an amusement park and you see this huge group of d-bags coming from another direction and they swoop into line right before you because SOME PEOPLE don’t know the proper times to be in a fucking hurry!

Don’t be one of those people.

I think the reason I feel such a strong pull to darkrides is because most of them embody that flamboyant Hee Haw-esque psychedelic kitsch of the 1960s & 1970s and you never know what day-glo monster is going to laugh mockingly at you when your Pretzel-car bursts through those black doors. Kennywood had a ride called Le Cachot (lovingly known as Lick a Shit) which burnt down in 1998 and I promise you that part of my heart was singed along with it. Kennywood has never been the same since - the remaining old darkrides have been given modern makeovers, which basically means they’ve been raped of their magic.

Their beloved skeleton-haunted Old Mill was given a Garfield makeover, for Christ’s sake.

However, I’m sure 25 years from now, when the current darkrides have been replaced with CGI zombies and To Catch a Predator vignettes, my pruned-self will be pining for the days when we got to shoot at mechanical ghosts for points.

90 minutes of back-and-forth running between the Haunted Mansion and Black Diamond — it was this girl’s dream come true. And we were treated on a lights-on excursion through the Haunted Mansion, where Henry got to see his favorite pair of floppy monster boobs in better lighting.

(We almost got to ride through the Black Diamond with the lights on but then some ride engineer person caught wind of it and came over to tell the ride operator to turn the lights back off. Henry was super bothered by this which worried absolutely no one because what’s Henry going to do? Bristle his moustache, that’s all.)

This is the censored version. We all know what was really happening.

Knoebels is a super charming park, the kind you’d want to lose your virginity in (they even let you bring dogs! Not that I’m suggesting anything by mentioning that in the sentence as losing your virginity), and I can’t wait to go back!