When all of us siblings got to be older we would go with our spouses/girlfriends/boyfriends to Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. It was one of the first big amusement parks somewhat close to us and all day we could ride the roller coasters, ferris wheel, tilt-a-whirl…………..
You could get wet from rides that dropped into the water and drenched you or because you peed yourself.
I was a pee pants.
I don’t like heights, speed or falling from heights at great speed.
Truth be told a fair amount of my siblings are Fellow Pee Pants and so we would be put in charge of holding purses for anyone braver than ourselves who wanted to go on the rides.
Sometimes the bench would be full of Purse Holders.
One time my brother convinced me to go on a roller coaster with The Brave Ones and I was so woozy and nauseous after I got off that I had to sit down in the grass until I felt better.
And stopped crying.
“Wasn’t that great, Kath? Didn’t you love it? The pukiness is just excitement. That’s what that is. Excitement.”
No Friar Ter, I thought I was going to die on that thing and I’m never going to do it again.
“Sure you are. You’re just overly excited right now. You’ll do it again. Mark my words.”
This summer my brother-in-law crossed something off his bucket list and parachuted out of an airplane. What a thrill! What an adrenaline rush! He couldn’t stop talking about how awesome it was.
The next day he showed us the video. Him getting training, in the plane talking and laughing, at the door with his instructor getting last minute tips.
The open door of an airplane.
“You guys should think about doing it,” he said. “It’s kind of expensive but if we register online we’ll get a discount. If we get a group together another discount.”
A group?
You mean us?
No, sorry brother-in-law. Wrong family. We’d all be crammed onto a bench on terra firma fighting over the purse holding for someone who doesn’t even carry one, and collectively peeing ourselves at the thought of that airplane door opening.
