Worst Amusement Park Ride Ever, A Sneak Preview Of My Afterlife, And The End Of The Boycott

Yesterday morning when my mother asked me if I had any plans for the 4th, I know she did so out of habit, realizing that the odds were that it was utterly unlikely that I had any plans, but feeling duty-bound to ask anyway, so she was extremely surprised when I told her that, in fact, I did have plans.
In my defense, while it had been five years since I’d last done anything to celebrate the 4th, this was the first time in four years that I didn’t have to work on Independence Day…though that really doesn’t do anything to change the fact that I’m a socially awkward shut-in.
The last time I went out on the 4th, as mentioned, was in 2000, and that experience was very different from yesterday’s activities.
For one thing, it involved traveling to Copper Harbor, which for you non-Yoopers is pretty much at the very northernmost point of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, at the very tip of the “thumb.”
It’s an extremely small town that is a popular tourist destination, as it is pretty much surrounded by Lake Superior. That, combined with the fact that it has a very good fireworks display (fired off over Superior, which enhances the effect of the fireworks considerably), makes it a very popular destination on the 4th, which is why myself and several of my friends, along with massive amounts of beer, made our way up there five years ago.
Which is the other major distinction between the two celebrations of our nation’s birth: no booze whatsoever was involved yesterday, whereas in 2000 I pretty much drank myself retarded.
And of course, my presence notwithstanding, yesterday’s activities were very much a family outing.
Not that I’m complaining; all things considered I had a pretty good time, and any aspects that detracted from my enjoyment had nothing to do with the company, but were entirely the result of my own hang-ups and apparent aversion to having fun, and also with the sheer number of people there.
As any regular Threshold reader knows, Jon plus large gatherings of people seldom equals happiness, puppies, and sunshine. Not that it would do me any good if it did, since I could hardly be considered a fan of those things.
In any case, the day started when Jamie and Casey stopped to pick me up. As they more or less had to go past me to get to Scott and Stacy’s anyway (or at the very least didn’t have to make much of a detour to pick me up), I figured it would make more sense for me to just snag a ride with them, especially since it would save me some bother.
From Scott and Stacy’s we made our way to the Metro station. The Metro, for anyone who doesn’t know, is the train system that serves the Metropolitan Washington DC area.
I hadn’t ridden on the Metro since 1998, when I’d come out this way to visit my brother, who at the time was stationed at the Pentagon.
Taking the Metro into DC was pretty much the only way to get there; driving would have been an absolute nightmare and would have been utterly out of the question.
The ride in on the Metro was uneventful, and soon enough we’d arrived, and, after avoiding the receipt of the handouts being offered by some guy standing outside the Metro station with a sign saying “Jews for Jesus,” we made our way to a security checkpoint. From there we went to the National Air and Space Museum in search of bathrooms, where, not for the first (or last) time I was forced to spend a fair amount of time standing in line.
Once nature’s call had been answered we hung out for a while to listen to the United States Air Force Band and Singing Sergeants performing, though we were unable to find a spot where we could also see them performing.
From there we headed to the National Mall to stake out a spot. Along the way we passed the revival tent where a low-rent Jesse Jackson was rapping about Jesus and how we need to get high on love rather than drugs.
I noted that the problem with getting high on love is that you can’t really snort it, smoke it, or inject it. Besides, the street price of love is just way too high for most people to afford...
Once we found a spot I noted that while there were a great many people around they were pretty well spread out, so I never felt too terribly crowded and was therefore reasonably free of anxiety.
I will say that the elevator ride in the parking deck at the first Metro station was a little close, but the fact that it was a short ride and it was people I’m comfortable with helped keep it from being too unnerving.
In any case, we sat and ate the sandwiches we’d picked up before we’d gone to the Metro station and just sort of chilled for a while.
Eventually to pass the time a card game was broken out. Because of my seeming aversion to fun I opted out of playing and chose instead to walk around the mall and check things out.
Honestly, I don’t know that it’s really an aversion to fun so much as it is an aversion to structured activities. That’s really what seems to be at the heart of my dislike for any kind of game-playing.
Well, that and the fact that I tend to suck at most games, and have no real desire to get better, and since I don’t really enjoy doing things that I suck at…
Really, I don’t know why I don’t like to play games. I just know that I don’t.
Walking along the National Mall on the 4th of July did have a sort of intrinsic coolness, but honestly, there wasn’t that much to see. None of the little stands that were set up were that interesting. Mostly they were just selling food, and I’d just eaten.
I didn’t bother taking the two question “Are you going to Heaven?” test, as I’m pretty sure I know the answer and a brownie isn’t sufficient consolation.
Eventually I made my way back to the rest of the group.
I noted to Scott that I’d received another demonstration of the fact that I seem to always be at odds with everything, as when I was walking toward the other end of the Mall, everyone else was headed the other way, and once I turned back, traffic had reversed, putting me against the flow both ways.
By the time I’d made it back to the group nature was calling again, so I headed for the nearest grouping of porta-potties.
There were several of them in a row – with mile-long lines at each of them.
When it came to ensuring that there were adequate facilities for the crowd, someone very clearly dropped the ball. The people to potty ratio seemed to be several hundred to one, with just a handful of potties spread out rather sparsely throughout the area. Several of them were locked and out of service.
After wandering around for a bit I considered just heading back to the group and holding it in, but then I considered the lengthy Metro ride ahead of me and the traffic jam that was likely to result once we tried to leave the Metro station, so I found the shortest line I could and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I’m not sure how long it was, but the line I was in was about a half a block long, and the sun had set before I managed to finish - just in time for the fireworks to begin.
Overall, it was sort of like standing in line for a ride at some sort of demented amusement, waiting for your turn on the lamest ride in the world.
While I’d been in line the others had begun to worry about me, and had, in fact, called several times, but the nearby performances of the Beach Boys, the Ojays, and Gloria Estefan drowned out the sound of my phone ringing.
The waiting in line would have been bad enough in and of itself, but it was made worse by the two really irritating guys ahead of me.
The biggest problem with them was that they thought they were funny even though there was no basis in fact for this belief.
They kept making rude comments about people who passed by at a volume that was just not quite loud enough for their targets to hear.
I wouldn’t have had a problem with this if their comments had actually been funny. Rudeness is forgivable; being unfunny isn’t.
The other thing I found bothersome was the girl who was with them. At the oldest, she was maybe sixteen. I would guess that the two guys were in their early forties.
All three appeared to be part of some larger group, based on the comments they made and the fact that several other people who knew them periodically stopped by to visit with them, some of them old, some of them around the girl’s age.
Of the two men, one was tall and the other had a beard. The one with the beard was the one who thought he was the funniest. The tall one seemed to have some connection with the girl, and had, in fact, referred to her at one point as “babe.”
Given the disparity in their ages, and just how young she was, it was my sincerest hope that he was the girl’s father.
After a while, I was no longer sure that I hoped that, as their behavior, while not totally crossing the line between being an extremely close father and daughter and being a creepily close father and daughter, they did seem a little bit too affectionate.
It’s possible that I was totally misreading things. Maybe he was younger than he looked, and maybe she was older (though it seems unlikely), and they were a couple and it wasn’t creepy (or illegal). I don’t know.
Either way, it was odd, and the guys were really irritating.
The really odd part, though, was that when we were finally nearing the “finish line,” the three of them just decided that they’d had enough and gave up.
It was fine by me, as they were irritating me, and their absence brought me that much closer to my destination, but still, it was a pretty dumb maneuver on their part.
When it was finally my turn a desperate pregnant woman who was way back in the line that had gotten twice as long as it had been when I got into it, came up, apologized, and asked if she could go ahead of me. How can you say no to a pregnant woman?
So, I waited for her, and thought that, given what was at stake, maybe I should get started before I went in, just to be sure that I didn’t seize up with performance anxiety once I got inside. After all, making that crowd wait even longer could be deadly.
But there were no issues on that front, and, as mentioned, I made it safely back in time for the fireworks.
Evidently there was a great deal of speculation as to where I was for so long. One particularly outlandish theory was that I’d hooked up with someone and was therefore too “busy” to answer my phone.
That one made me laugh.
We left pretty much right after the fireworks display was over, fighting the crowd on our way to the nearest Metro station as the DC police guided traffic in a test of evacuation routes and procedures. Once we got to the station we hit a bottleneck as way too many people tried to pass through the turnstiles that were meant to accommodate much smaller and more organized groups.
Along the way Scott noticed that my phone was blinking, indicating that, once again, I’d gotten a call without hearing the phone ring, though this time the caller had left a voicemail message.
It had been Kathleen, calling to say happy 4th and to let me know that at her and Brian’s fire department’s festivities for the day, which included the raffling off of a truck, I didn’t win the truck, but for a moment, until the “Jon,” or more likely, “John,” who won it had his last name read, she thought that maybe I actually had.
I tried calling her back, but got her voicemail. While we were still waiting to get into the Metro station she called back, and this time I heard my phone ring.
Once we got into the Metro we managed to get onto a fairly empty car on the train, though at each stop it filled up more and more to the point that I was utterly surrounded by people. It made me think about the “Two Questions” stand, and where I’m likely to end up if there is an afterlife.
I suspect it will be a lot like that train ride, only it will go on longer, and the people will be bigger, sweatier, smellier, and naked. Plus they’ll be chatty, and there will be more of them.
And snakes.
Still, I managed to avoid panicking by essentially shutting down and retreating into myself for the duration of the train ride, which really isn’t hat much different from how I normally operate.
Once we got to the Metro station, which is the end of the line (or the beginning, depending on which way you’re headed) we made for our cars and spent a good forty to fifty minutes trying to get from the parking garage to the actual highway.
All told, it took nearly three hours from when we left DC to when I got home, which is really, really pathetic considering that I really don’t live that far from the DC.
Still, despite the various annoyances, I did have a good time, and it was definitely an experience. Given that I do live so close it would be silly for me to not go to DC for the 4th at least once, so I’ve accomplished that much anyway.
It was actually the first time I’d been to DC in two years, as I’ve been holding a grudge against the place from when I tried to drive through it and ended up lost for hours on my way to visit Eric in Maryland. Ever since that experience I’ve essentially boycotted the place.
But the boycott is now lifted, and maybe someday I’ll head down there again to take in some of the sights.
Yeah, right.
Anyway, there’s a lot more for me to say, but I guess I’ll save it for future entries.