{"id":1780,"date":"2011-08-27T16:18:32","date_gmt":"2011-08-27T20:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=1780"},"modified":"2011-08-28T15:04:46","modified_gmt":"2011-08-28T19:04:46","slug":"wedding-road-trip-part-4-birthday-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=1780","title":{"rendered":"Wedding Road Trip, Part 4: Birthday Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those of you just joining:<\/strong>\u00a0 We\u2019re driving to Chicago for my cousin\u2019s wedding.\u00a0 No, my other cousin.\u00a0 Also, there will be no weather in this narrative.\u00a0 The weather was fine, with only a few embarrassed clouds.\u00a0 For the purposes of our driving descriptions, you should feel free to fill in whatever weather you prefer.\u00a0 I\u2019ll try to remind you where to fill them in, for those of you who require a little climate control in your narrative.\u00a0 We resume our story after Saturday’s\u00a0wedding,\u00a0as Sunday morning dawns on the 9th Royal Birthday of the Reigning Queen of Pink.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sunday dawned the way you\u2019d expect, and we loaded up the van with the Very Clever Grandparents and headed north to meet my sister at Great America, also known as Six Flags.\u00a0 Why the place needs two names is beyond the scope of this narrative.\u00a0 If you\u2019re filling in the weather at home, I\u2019d recommend about 80 degrees and sunny, with a light breeze.<\/p>\n

Number One Son started to slowly go crazy as we walked in \u2013 he hates being outdoors, and this was nothing but.\u00a0 I took him by the hand, lead him a little ways away, and leveraged the time-honored parenting technique known as \u201cthreatening grievous bodily harm\u201d if he didn\u2019t at least suffer in silence while his sister enjoyed some of her birthday.\u00a0 Crowds were light in deference to the Reigning Queen of Pink, who was thrilled to be there with all her loyal subjects.\u00a0 To her, the only thing marring her perfect day were the height issues \u2013 contrary to popular belief, turning 9 does not make you taller.\u00a0 At 42.5 inches, there are things you just can’t ride, no matter how much she\u2019d like to strap herself into something called The Cardiac Problem, which requires signatures from your family doctor and next your next-of-kin.\u00a0 If it requires legal waivers, the Reigning Queen of Pink wants to get on board.\u00a0 Since these things are significantly more likely to kill me than they are her, I was just as glad she\u2019s not old enough to go on most of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Hat Stays On<\/p><\/div>\n

The Human Tape Recorder and even Number One Son got on a few of these, requiring me come with them,\u00a0sign the waivers of doom, and get turned upside down at speeds that Einstein wouldn\u2019t have approved of approaching.\u00a0\u00a0 For the record, the Hat stays on, no matter how fast the ride.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Very Clever Grandfather showed us what \u201cVery Clever\u201d means by very cleverly not getting on any of the rides, with the exception of the largest carousel in the world, where his horse came in first by half a length.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The RQoP, whose appetite for destruction was not satisfied by the rides she could go on \u2013 which were many and varied, I\u2019ll have you know \u2013 wanted to make sure the <\/span>trip was rounded out by her winning a significant stuffed prize.\u00a0 I suspect<\/del> I\u2019m certain that she\u2019d scripted out well in advance just how her birthday was to unfold, and \u201cwinning something\u201d was absolutely on that list.\u00a0 God help the one who stands in the way of the movie she\u2019s shooting in her head, because if the script says, \u201cCute Birthday Heroine wins cute stuffed thing and then goes on flume ride and gets wet,\u201d man, you make sure she wins something before you put her in the water.\u00a0 There\u2019s a reason she rules by divine right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Besides, truth be told, there\u2019s a je ne se qua about \u201cwinning\u201d something tangible, however small, that stays with you.\u00a0 It\u2019s a solid piece of evidence that you were there, that you accomplished something, albeit perhaps for some of the more mutable definitions of \u201caccomplished.\u201d\u00a0 The Very Clever Grandfather shared a story with me later that I\u2019d never heard before, about the time he won something at a fair.\u00a0 This was 1957ish, and he was about the age Number One Son is today.\u00a0 There was a local parish fair, and a raffle for a television \u2013 black and white, of course, and somewhat smaller than the monitor you\u2019re using to read this.\u00a0 The winning raffle ticket was chosen from a large bowl, and no one seemed to have it.\u00a0 His father suggested he look around, since there were a damn lot of raffle tickets on the ground at that point, and my father (along with several others) scoured the ground for a few minutes, picked up a half dozen tickets, and realized one of them was IT.\u00a0 All of about 12, he walked up to the parish elders and told them he had the winning ticket.\u00a0 Obviously, he hadn\u2019t purchased the ticket and didn\u2019t claim to have, and there was some discussion about just what exactly to do.\u00a0 In the end, the decision was \u201cwinning ticket in hand\u201d was really the only requirement, and he went home with a television \u2013 which he kept I think until about the time he got married.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Healthy<\/a>

A Healthy Lunch<\/p><\/div>\n

I didn\u2019t know this until after the RQoP dragged me over to an arcade area, where you can \u2013 with luck or with skill \u2013 win something cute and stuffed.\u00a0 Since this was after lunch, I thought I qualified as cute and stuffed, but there was no talking her off script at this point, and I resigned myself to my fate.\u00a0 Nothing like having the adoring young girl look up at her hero and say, \u201cWin me something!\u201d\u00a0 Shit.<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>

I Have To Blow Up Your Planet<\/p><\/div>\n

Then I remembered that old age and bribery will overcome luck and skill any day, and steered her toward a boat race game where you roll your skee-balls into holes marked \u201cslow,\u201d \u201cfaster,\u201d or \u201cfastest.\u201d\u00a0 The winner of the game \u2013 and there are 12 boats \u2013 wins a small stuffed tiger.\u00a0 Win two games in a row, you win a somewhat larger stuffed Marvin the Martian.\u00a0 You need at least two people for a race, and it\u2019s $3 bucks to enter.\u00a0 With only the two of us, that was $12 bucks.\u00a0 Do you know it\u2019s actually as hard to deliberately lose a skee ball boat race as it is to win?\u00a0 Anyway, the RQoP won twice in rapid succession, the nice lady running the game having grasped the script pretty quickly \u2013 she\u2019s probably read that script before \u2013 and we left with Marvin muttering something about blowing up the planet, and the delighted RQoP talking about the flume ride.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are rides at these amusement parks, sure, and games, but if they really want to rope people in, I think they should consider some alternate rides and games for the grownups.\u00a0 The number one game that comes to my mind should be the Claw Flume Game, where for a dollar you\u2019re allowed to try three times to pick up whatever you want out of the flotsam and jetsam at the bottom of the pool by the ride.\u00a0 These are pretty clearly all things that have spilled from various pockets, purses, and puckers of people too busy being thrown upside-down and splashed sideways to notice at the time that they were being robbed.\u00a0 I saw countless coins, 4 pairs of Ray-Ban sunglasses, 2 Blackberries, 31 driver\u2019s licenses from multiple states, 47 pairs of flip-flops, an unexpired DoD Common Access Card indicating a TS\/SCI clearance, 7 cell phones, 3 wallets, the left shoe from a pair of size 8 Bruno Maglis, 12 watches, and a 1964 Smith-Corona typewriter.\u00a0 Obviously, the next most important ride is \u201cThe Mugging,\u201d where you\u2019re encouraged to bring all your stuff with promises of \u201cthere are cubbyholes for you to store all your stuff\u201d that turn out to be out of order when you get to the front of the line.\u00a0 It will hold you upside-down for about 60 seconds while vibrating like a washing machine with a bad bearing in the spin cycle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019d also like to see a ride for kids based on the movie \u201cUp.\u201d\u00a0 (\u201cHere, hold this.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHeyyyyyyyyyy!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOK, how much for two more?\u201d)\u00a0 There could be another ride called The Mother-in-Law, which drives at a safe speed and makes only sharp right turns when you least expect them, and The First Date, which floats through 16 slow tunnels and gets you back just before the park closes at 10pm.\u00a0 (\u201cWill you get lucky on The First Date?\u201d\u00a0 They\u2019d make a fortune!)\u00a0<\/p>\n

After all the rides, we all got tattoos.\u00a0 The RQoP got an eponymous tattoo of \u201cRQoP\u201d of course; I got one on my back that says \u201cHe thinks there\u2019s a picture of the Hindenburg back here.\u201d\u00a0 Shaving my back took longer than the tattoo did, I swear.\u00a0 After that, my sister was kicked out of the park for trying to ride a \u201cminiature pony exhibit\u201d that turned out to be someone\u2019s seeing eye dog, and we headed back to Chicago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Click<\/a>

The Queens Of Pink<\/p><\/div>\n

We stopped in to celebrate the birthday with the Queen Mother of Pink, and there was cake and birthday presents and aunts and uncles and cousins and folks, and a great time was had by all.\u00a0 The only marring to the event was my mother, who had some trouble lighting the crazy singing candle and called me over to help, handing me the smoldering end of the stick used to light the magnesium wick.\u00a0 Have you ever tried singing Happy Birthday while holding three fingers in your mouth?\u00a0 No more wire hangers, I freakin\u2019 get it, OK Mom?\u00a0 I left my hand in my beer the rest of the evening, and we had a good time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then we went back to the hotel, changed clothes, and went to the Katy Perry show at the Allstate Arena down the street from the hotel, which she had postponed from July 8th to August 21 so she could be in town when the Reigning Queen of Pink would be there.\u00a0 Well, we didn\u2019t go to the show as much as drive past it, but we did listen to Last Friday Night on the radio on the way home.\u00a0 The RQoP sent Katy a nice note about being sorry to miss the show, maybe next year, etc.<\/p>\n

A quick dip in the pool got us all ready for bed, to say nothing of easing my throbbing fingers, and we tucked in the birthday girl with Marvin the Martian, still bent on blowing up the planet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Next Up:\u00a0 Always Coming Home<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d also like to see a ride for kids based on the movie \u201cUp.\u201d (\u201cHere, hold this.\u201d \u201cHeyyyyyyyyyy!\u201d \u201cOK, how much for two more?\u201d) There could be another ride called The Mother-in-Law, which drives at a safe speed and makes only sharp right turns when you least expect it, and The First Date, which floats through 16 slow tunnels and gets back just before the park closes at 10pm. (\u201cWill you get lucky on The First Date?\u201d They\u2019d make a fortune!) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,61,47,3,5,45,40,10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1780"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1822,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions\/1822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}