A Change of Plans

I am back, which I know is obvious, but it has become my opening line, so please let it go. Anyway, I was going to write about this story I saw in the news in December. It is a disturbing but somehow funny story but I decided I would do it later. I really need the news story, which I have to "find" again, to set it up properly. I did send it out to a number of friends. Of course, it makes me wonder how I have friends when I treat them to such disturbing news stories. That is a question that I will leave out there.

I have decided to recount a recent story in my own life, such that it is. I turned forty in July. That is funny since I could never see myself being forty when I was younger. I think I always figured that I would have been assassinated (did you ever notice that there an awful lot of "s"s in assassinate, and that it is really two asses together. There is something else for you to contemplate when you have a free moment, either that or watch some paint dry, which is a whole lot of fun, especially if it is an oil based paint in an enclosed, airless room. I guess at that point it is not really watching paint dry but more akin to getting high while sniffing insolvents, I digress). My wife thought that it would be a good idea to go to Fantasy Island in Grand Island, NY, with my then seven year old son. I am not so sure how it was "for" me but that is my problem.

As a kid, I went there with my family far too many times to recall. It was about the only amusement park that I recall visiting with my family. We did do Disney World once, ONCE. We were staying in Clearwater Beach, FL, at the Sheraton Sand Key (1978) which would turn out to become the hotel where Jim Bakker diddled (there I am using that term) Jessica Hahn back in the 80s, if any of you recall. We did a day trip to Disney World in Orlando. It was an unmitigated disaster as my siblings and myself (we were aged 7, 9 and 13 at the time) really would have preferred to be back at the hotel, on the beach and in the pool. Anyway, my little brother apparently got into a snit and tossed his hat to the ground, which would have gotten him tossed out of a baseball game. We get back to the hotel and my father, on hotel stationary, wrote my brother a letter signed as Mr Disney, requesting my brother never come back to Disney World on account of his rotten behaviour. The funny thing is that he, nor any of us, have been back since. I mean what is the thrill of a six foot rat, anyway. I think that to subject a child to that is rather funny but cruel, that is of course, after the crying begins.

We used to do Fantasy Island, though, and I do not recall many complaints. I have driven by the place numerous times in the last twenty five or so years and have not felt the need to go there, at all. Anyway, this is where I am going for MY birthday so as not to disappoint my wife and son. Do I get a say in MY 40th birthday, obviously not and yet I accept that. As my birthday fell on a Saturday, it became an easy thing to do, notwithstanding the hour wait at the border to cross into the US, but that is reality in 2004.

I was hoping for rain or a snowstorm to get me out of it. Alas, it was sunny and warm. I guess that is okay for some but to tell the truth, I have always enjoyed it rained on my birthday. I must be some kind of freak. Did I just compare myself to Michael Jackson? This has got to stop. I am something different from a "freak", I just do not know what it is.

We get to the hotel and take my son for a swim. That was fun. My wife gets the idea, and it was a good one, that we should go to Fantasy Island after five. That way it is not so hot, admission is half price and we do not have to stay that long. I was game for that.

We arrive and I look around and think that these look like good folks to celebrate my 40th birthday with.....NOT! It was like a fat, tattooed, polyester freakshow in the place. I may be a bit snobbish but how come people still seem to think that the mullet is proper hairstyle for anybody? It was more like mullet island in there.

I soon learned that the place was misnamed. I told some cute blonde my fantasy and all I got was a smack in the face. Well, I should speak to somebody about that.....or write this down (I guess I just have) but I think that I have another business idea, and this one capitalizes on something that really sells....SEX and fantasy. Ohhh, I will keep it under my hat (or zippered) for now.

Anyway, we go on the log ride. I am sitting alone in the back with my wife and son in the front. I am bearing the brunt of the splashes and I am soaking wet, my shirt, shorts and underwear. That is not to say those upfront were not wet but I seemed to get it worst. They went on again and I stayed in the sun hoping to dry out a bit. They went on again. They both came off soaked. My wife says she got some of the water in her eyes. I had to respond given the green colour of that liquid, "what makes you think it is water." That left her thinking the worst for a while, so my work there was done.

We got a few slices of pizza and I got myself a large, large beer. It was American beer so it was really like water but I did find myself catching a small buzz. I guess there was an upside to not eating that much all day. I did get to thinking about things at that point. There I was sitting in wet underwear at Fantasy Island. Never in my dreams could I have foreseen of myself turning 40, being in wet underwear at Fantasy Island. Then I really thought about it, I think that I always envisioned that 40 would be spent with wet underwear, I just did not know it would be from the log ride or what the mystery liquid would be. The Fantasy Island? I never saw that coming.

The bottom line, though, is that my son got to enjoy something that I enjoyed when I was younger, so it was a great day for me. I mean I was, and am, alive, and given the alternative, it is the way to be. Sorry, I said no lessons, no hugging, so forget that I wrote that bottom line crap. Gotta run, ciao for now!