Next we saw all the metal detectors, which is the first thing you have to walk through before you even purchase tickets to enter the park. A woman ahead of me was stopped by an employee until she pulled up her pant leg and said, “Alcohol monitor.” The employee then directed her to a different metal detector, and then he yelled to the crowd, “If you have an alcohol-monitored ankle bracelet, please go through the metal detector that specifies that over here to the right.” What a classy crowd.
I had my printout from the Internet that I thought was our ticket into the park, but when I showed it to the Wild World officer, he said what I had was only for our Express Pass and it did not include the park entrance fee. After waiting in that line for twenty minutes I was told that we still had to buy the entrance tickets for either thirty-five dollars a person or twenty-seven dollars a person for a party of ten. I was with Peter’s mother and sister, who, like Peter, are both carriers of the cheap gene, so they insisted we buy ten tickets at twenty-seven dollars instead of the eight at thirty-five because it would be ten dollars cheaper and we could sell the other two leftover tickets. It was already twelve thirty and the park closed at eight p.m. This was not the way I wanted to do the amusement park. I didn’t want to waste any more time, so I agreed. When I started passing out the tickets I said, “Look, I’m on TV. I can’t go scalp two tickets to Wild World. What if I get caught? And worse, what if no one recognizes me while I’m trying to do it? That will be downright humiliating. Let’s just go in the park.” But Karen convinced me to wait ten minutes while we sent out Kimberly, our nineteen-year-old niece, to sell the tickets. As we sat there waiting for Kimberly to return with the cash, I started to look around at all the teenagers and was in awe of their incredible confidence. Apparently love handles are all the rage for this generation, and if you got them, then flaunt them. Picture them pouring out of a pair of acid-washed skinny jeans and pair it with a T-shirt stating YOU WISH YOU WERE MY BOYFRIEND. All I’m saying is, based on what I witnessed that day, teen anorexia has to be on the decline.
Kimberly returned with two crisp twenties and the swagger of an experienced crack dealer. She said, “No big deal. I told the guy, ‘Walk away, roll up the two twenty-dollar bills in the palm of your hand and then come back here in three minutes, shake my hand, and you and your little friend will be on the Rocketeer in no time.’ ” I was so impressed I said, “All those years of being a latchkey child and watching reruns of Law & Order really paid off.”
OK, now, where do we get our Express Pass and what is it, exactly? I wondered. We were told to go into a building across the quad to get it. When we entered the Express Pass building, it was extremely stuffy and each person who tried to help us directed us to another room and then another room. In the third room, the most unenthusiastic nineteen-year-old boy greeted us with greasy, dyed-black hair covering one eye and his earlobes as large as saucers because he had those earrings in each one that makes the piercing in the ear a super-large hole so you can see right through it, and the earrings can double as bangle bracelets. He went on to explain, “In order to receive your Express Pass, you need to listen to the brief video explaining how the Express Pass works. If you lose the Express Pass, you will be charged $250 and you must return the pass here fifteen minutes before we close. Does everyone understand?” We all said yes, and the video began. It was a pretty complicated computer that was the size of an old-style pager. In the video it went through all the different levels of the Express Pass. It was so confusing and hot in there that I started to feel claustrophobic. Now it was one p.m. and we had only seven hours left. When the Spanish version concluded we were able to move on to the next room to finally receive our Express Pass devices. We were told, yet again, about the fee if we lost or damaged it, this time by a twenty-something woman with a piercing in her nose and lip, until I finally interrupted, “Yes, we want it! Where do I sign? The day is half over already!”
As soon as I signed the paper, she said, “Please let me draw your attention to all the Express Pass rides that are temporarily closed today. The list was about ten rides long. “What, all of those? Did we even need the Express Pass today?” I questioned the girl with the jewelry face. I’m bothered by these piercings because when you take the hoop out of your nose, it’s going to look like you have a massive pore, and the one in the lip must be virtually impossible to maneuver MAC lip liner around. “Probably not, but you can’t get your fifty-five dollars per person back now because you signed the consent form.”
Well, now we were roughly seven hundred dollars in the hole, had been there over an hour, and had yet to do one fun thing.
Then I knew what I had to do next. I had to have “the talk” with my youngest and smallest child.
I was afraid we were going to have a repeat of what happened at a hotel in Arizona recently with a waterslide where Brandon wasn’t tall enough. I was already at the pool and when I saw Peter and the boys walking up to me, I could immediately see Brandon was crying. “What’s wrong?” I asked. Drake chimed in, “He’s not tall enough to go on the slide. I told him, and he’s freaking out.” Oh no, the horror known as “little brother syndrome.” There is nothing worse than when your big brother can do something but you’re told you can’t because of your size. I had to try to fix it. “Just come with me,” I said as I held Brandon’s hand and we began to walk up the steps to the slide. I was hoping that when we got up there the lifeguard wouldn’t notice Brandon’s lack of height or would be distracted by texting. First I used my fingers to spike up his wet hair into a faux Mohawk to give him a little height and edge, in the hopes it would make him less likely to be fucked with. Then when it got close to our turn to go down the slide, I told him to stand up tall and then immediately sit down on the slide until the lifeguard cleared him to go. I figured if he was sitting, the lifeguard wouldn’t notice how not-tall he was. Brandon did as he was told but the lifeguard took one look at his little legs and said, “Hey buddy, you want to come over here?” As he pointed to the height chart, waiting for Brandon to stand by it, Brandon’s chocolate eyes stared at mine, frozen in fear. He must have felt just like an adult would feel who’s had one too many drinks and hears the sirens of the highway patrol behind them. It’s over, I’m caught. And there Brandon was at forty-two inches, standing under the line at forty-eight inches, a full six inches unaccounted for. The lifeguard continued, “I’m sorry, buddy.” I started to plead with him. “Please, he can totally swim. I can go down before him so I can catch him when he comes down so you don’t have to worry about him drowning, not that he would.” The lifeguard continued, “If you want to have him professionally measured, you can do that in the office by the snack shack downstairs, ma’am.”
Brandon just found out he wasn’t tall enough to go on the roller coaster with Mackenzie and me.
I said, “Come on, Brandon, let’s go in the lazy river instead.”
“What, are you serious?” Brandon asked. “This isn’t even a big slide. I’ve been on slides totally bigger than this dinky slide. Remember when you took me on the Hard Rock Hotel slide in Las Vegas, Mom? This can’t be happening right now! This can’t be happening right now!” He cried as he held his head in his hands in disbelief. I talked him down and said how it could have been worse by explaining what a DUI feels like, but halfway through I decided to offer him an ice-cream sandwich in exchange for him stopping his wailing and resigning himself to an afternoon in an inner tube.
As we finally entered Wild World, I said, “Brandon, now, some of the rides you are not going to be able to go on because you are not tall enough right now. One day you will be, but not now, and if you cry we’ll have to go home. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he said. Or, lied.
I looked at the map and saw that the Lickety Split was forty-two inches, so Brandon made the cut to go on that one. After walking what felt like half a mile, we saw that the Lickety Split was closed. In fact, so many rides and restaurants were not open for business that Wild World was starti
ng to feel like a foreclosure ghost town. Finally, we found the Wet ‘n’ Wonderful: it was open, Brandon was tall enough, and lo and behold the Express Pass worked on it. We got in a separate line and basically cut in front of the other people—my childhood dream was finally coming true! However, since it was December and not particularly hot outside, the ride was practically empty anyway. So it was 1:40 p.m. and we were finally on our first ride, which really didn’t require the fifty-five-dollar Express Pass. Brandon liked it so much we went a few more times until we were totally soaked. I decided to buy the photo of us coming down the giant drop with all of our mouths agape. I went to the person in the booth and asked, “Can I get photo number 2423, sir?” When he turned fully around, I realized he wasn’t a sir but a ma’am, and a ma’am who shaved. Her face had a complete five o’clock shadow, and it wasn’t even two p.m. yet. That’s always a scary thing.
One of the first articles I ever read in Cosmopolitan magazine when I was about eleven years old was about a woman who had to set her alarm clock and wake an hour before her husband did every morning so she could shave her face without her husband ever knowing her hairy secret. They had been married for eight years and she had never slept in. I saw on a documentary that it is supposed to be a status symbol if a woman can grow a beard or goatee in prison. Now, if I were in prison, I’d certainly be impressed, but the fact was, I was not incarcerated; I was at a supposedly family-friendly amusement park looking to capture memories. I thought about how if this had been eighty years ago, instead of working the photo booth at the Wet ‘n’ Wonderful she would have been a main attraction in the traveling carnival as the Bearded Lady, the star of the whole show. Talk about being born in the wrong era. After I paid seventeen dollars for the five-by-seven photo and my credit card was run, she informed me the machine was broken and I had to go to another booth to pick it up. She got out the map of the park and circled where I was to go. It appeared to be near the entrance, and since the kids were whining for food, I decided I’d pick it up on our way out.
When we got to the food area, it was packed and the lines were longer than at the most popular ride. We tried to find a restaurant to eat at, but they were all closed. The choice was burgers or pizza, so I chose the pizza line but after twenty minutes the line had not moved at all. Unfortunately, my fancy Express Pass did not work for the food line. I had reached the point where I felt the need to talk to strangers since we are all in the same boat like they were on the Titanic. “This is ridiculous,” I said. “They can’t close all but two food stands and not allow us to bring in any of our own food. I’m sorry that they are financially hurting, but aren’t we all hurting in this recession? My stomach is hurting because they wouldn’t let me bring in some granola bars. They could have at least disclosed the rides and restaurants that were closed on their website so we could have stuffed our faces before entering the park, right?” But no one in line responded. They just continued to stand there looking straight ahead, so I kept at it: “It’s two o’clock and we’ve only been on one ride. My hamstrings are killing me from walking. I’m never coming here again. My kids are starving. I’m going to tweet about this.” Finally a dad with a teenage daughter responded to my rant and said, “The pizza sucks. It’s like biting into a pizza box. You should go to the burger line, it goes a lot quicker.”
It wasn’t until I was in the equally slow-moving burger line that I realized the guy just wanted to get rid of me. This is why America is where it is today—people just won’t speak up at places like Wild World.
After my kids devoured their eleven-dollar burgers, we were off to ride the Flash, which is like a roller coaster that you hang from. Because Brandon was tall enough to ride it, we were able to use the Express Pass. There were two lines. The one to the right said EXPRESS PASS and the one to the left said ENTER HERE. 45 MINUTE WAIT. The Express Pass led us on the other side of the ride and we only had to wait a few minutes. I have to admit, looking at the commoners standing across from the ride made me feel a little superior, but also a little guilty, like Emma Stone’s character in The Help. When the ride returned and the passengers were released, the people on the other side who were anxiously waiting started to move an inch forward when the conductor of the ride held up his hand to stop them and then ushered us, the VIPs, in. We could choose any seat we wanted, so of course I went for the front. Who wouldn’t? As I hopped in and pulled down the bar around my shoulders and waist. I heard someone on my left, where the regular line was, say, “Really, lady, you’re going to take the front row?” I felt bad because the people waiting to be in the first row had to wait even longer than the other people, but I didn’t feel bad for too long because within seconds I was off jetting through trees like a flash. Brandon and Mackenzie were behind me. Drake was next to me and we were both screaming our lungs out the whole time.
About a half hour later, we were in line for the Monster, the largest roller coaster, when I checked my Twitter mentions and saw “Look who cut in front of the line at the Flash? It’s the ugly girl from Chelsea Lately.” And right there posted was the most unflattering picture of me getting into my seat. It was a full close-up of my face, and I looked like I had two buckteeth and a double chin. The only view of myself that is more unflattering is when my iPhone camera accidentally reverses and faces me. Oh great, I thought, now I’m going to lose followers who are big amusement-park aficionados. And then I had an Oprah aha moment. I remembered when I used to come to Wild World with my parents and I would fantasize about one day being wealthy enough to rent out the entire park for a day so I’d never have to wait in line. Express Passes didn’t exist back then, but essentially I was rich enough not to wait in line. I could afford to do something I had always dreamed of. I was so proud of myself. That is, until I overheard the two teenage employees talking to each other: “No way, man, I’m so tired. We were out at Skull’s place drinking till four a.m., then my shift started here at eight. I’ll smoke a bowl with you though.” Just at that moment we started to move forward. Nice, so the idiot in charge of running the roller coaster was hungover and functioning on four hours of sleep. As we chugged up to the first huge hill on the Monster, I looked out at the all-wooden ride and was horrified to see how it had deteriorated. The white paint was severely chipped and large chunks of wood were missing out of the planks. It was clearly infested with termites. At least Brandon was too small to ride and was off getting ice cream with my mother-in-law. Someone would survive to keep the family going.
Enjoying the roller coaster with Drake and Brandon.
After the ride did not kill any of us, but did give me some serious whiplash, we headed to the ice-cream shop. Brandon came running toward me crying and angrily screamed, “You went on a ride without me. What the heck is wrong with you? You’re not my friend anymore!”
So for the next hour we used our Express Pass and rode Brandon’s favorite ride, the Flash, over and over again, each time pissing off a whole new group of potential Chelsea Lately viewers. When we rode it for the last time, Brandon was on such a high he smacked a blond teenage girl’s butt as he ran past her, saying, “Yeah, baby.” I immediately went over to the girl and apologized. I couldn’t believe it. The only explanation is that the caliber of gang members Brandon had been surrounded by all day had rubbed off on him. He was behaving like a little chauvinistic cholo.
That night when we were driving home, the kids were all saying what a fun day it was and that Wild World was the best place ever. I reminded them about the dirty bathrooms, about how upset I was when Drake accidently dropped his thirteen-dollar plastic cup (which provides free soda refills) off a ramp down a ditch, and how they only played Spanish music, but they kept saying that it was the best day ever. I relented and told them we could come back but we were not going to purchase the Express Pass. Drake piped up and said, “Did you not see the sign? It was a forty-five-minute wait for the Flash. That is like five hours in kid time. No way, Mom, we have to get the Express Pass every time.”
I w
as worried that Drake was turning into one of those kids who have only flown privately and then when they board a commercial plane for the first time they shout to their parents, “Why are all these weird people on our plane?” But I thought about what a great time I had, despite riding the rickety Monster and Flash eight times, and said, “OK, but we’re only going once a year.” The next trip is on my calendar in solid red ink.
11
THE CHELSEA CLIQUE
Working at Chelsea Lately has many benefits, including free food, cooked by Chelsea’s chef brother, Roy; health insurance; a 401(k) plan; and one benefit just for me: Chelsea especially likes to take me into her office to shave my face of its little baby hairs. Sometimes she’ll just scream out, “Heather, come here! With this light, your hairy face will be so easy to get at.” There are other female staff members with hairier faces than mine, but she doesn’t feel comfortable asking them to be shaved.
All the writers vie for Miss Handler’s attention. Like Chuy, we’d all like to be adopted by Miss Millionaire. But second to that, I enjoy all the opportunities to travel with her. And not just because it means getting to stay in hotels where I don’t have to be a mom for five minutes. It is a wonderful bonding experience to go with Chelsea as her opening act for her live stand-up shows around the country. But one thing she hates and does not allow is anyone crapping in the crapper of her private plane. It’s a policy that, if broken, I believed could deeply doom someone and probably get mentioned in seven or eight Chelsea Lately round-table discussions.
My Inappropriate Life Page 8
