I write to you this Wednesday from Paducah, Kentucky, home of The National Quilt Museum. Since we spoke to you last week, we:
- Met Sue the T. Rex at the Field Museum in Chicago
- Attended our first Cubs game and ran into our friend, Nick Brownrigg!
- Got season passes to Six Flags and checked out Six Flags Great America
- Went to Six Flags St. Louis
- Turned into two-year-olds at the City Museum of St. Louis
- Had a SUPER (heh) good time in Metropolis, Illinois
You might say, “Whoa! That’s a lot of Six Flags in so little time.” Why, yes. It is.
You see, I grew up in a Six Flags family. My parents started taking me to Fiesta Texas (acquired by Six Flags in 1996) before I could walk. Heck, their honeymoon was to Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington. I can say with confidence that I’ve been over 100 times just to Fiesta Texas, not counting AstroWorld and Arlington.
Plus, Jason and I both LOVE coasters. So a really exciting part of this trip for me is getting to experience Six Flags in other states. And, you know, make snarky ass comments like: “This one should really be called TWO flags. Am I right?”
So, on Thursday, I was able to set aside a good amount of unemployed traveler’s guilt (more on that in a future blog post!) to spend some time at Six Flags Great America. It’s about 1 hour north of Chicago. Six Flags has only been open for the season up here for a few weeks, and a handful of people on Reddit were saying how all the rides were pretty much walk on if you went on a weekday. How cool is that?
Welp, there were about 20 school buses already there when we pulled up 30 minutes before park opening. And there were more filing in.
“Oh, boohoo, so you had to wait in a line?” No, no! That was the least of my concerns! You see, these were middle school students. I am absolutely terrified of middle school students.
Am I a fully grown adult? I am not sure yet. But I DO know that nothing is more accurate than this bit by the Great John Mulaney*:
This might surprise you, but I wasn’t a cool teenager (I’ve been just thinking about buying a pair of Docs for 15 years – seriously I have the tab open right now. God, they’re expensive). When I was 13, I was pudgy, bullied, and pretty damn insecure! A bit of that might have slipped into adulthood.
This is why I rightfully freaked out when we were walking in, and a group of teens was walking alongside us. I heard one of them shout, “OH MY GOD! Is that a fanny pack?” I shrank.
“JASON, I NEED TO GO BACK TO THE VAN AND TAKE THIS OFF!”
“No, you don’t.”
“THAT BOY SAID IT LOOKED DUMB.”
“Who cares?”
“THEY DO!”
“But you shouldn’t.”
But I did. But I also needed tampons and ibuprofen, so I trudged on.
As the day went by, it got better. Turns out, I was so frustrated by the long lines, that the opinion of 13-year-olds was the last thing on my mind!
Last year, Jason and I visited Disney and Universal. I think that a lot of the rides at Six Flags are more thrilling than the Orlando parks. But what Disney and Universal do so well is provide you with an overall experience that Six Flags just lacks. Part of that is the idea that the ride starts in the queue – from videos to interactive cast members to cool props. Whereas, at Great America, you’re sort of stuck staring at your shoes. I remember when I was a kid seeing cartoons in line at Fiesta, but I haven’t noticed that in recent years.
We didn’t get on many rides the first part of the day, and we were excited to find that Maxx Force had a single rider line! Right before a thunderstorm hit.
Rides were closed down for not too long. Maybe 30-45 minutes. We sat on a bench under a tree until it looked like the employees were about to get the go-ahead to open the ride lines again. We then headed over to Raging Bull, one of the more popular rides, to wait until the line opened up.
Once the Six Flags Gods gave the all-clear, we filed into the queue with an army of children ahead of us. After a few minutes of inching up the line, a lady, maybe 30 spots ahead of us, starts screaming at kids in the back of the line to jump around the ropes and come up to her group.
“The Six Flags employee said no cutting!”
“I DON’T CARE! You guys come up here!”
“He says he’s going to call security”
“NO, HE’S NOT! YOU GET UP HERE.”
So about 8 kids jump over the flowerbed and run up to meet the chaperone (I could tell she was a chaperone by the bright red child next to her).
The Six Flags employee yells that he’s getting security, so this mother ditches the kids in line and scurries away, looking over her shoulder every two minutes to make sure she’s not being followed.
About 5 minutes later, the following goes down in parallel:
- One of the kids yells, “Security is coming!”
- Two security guards walk up the line, each carrying a metal grabber. You know, like the ones you give Grandma to pick up the remote when it falls to the ground. We all exclaim, “They are gonna get grabbed to death!”
- Chaperone Mom apparates back into the line and taught a bunch of children a whole new set of words.
The group was eventually escorted out of line. And that was that.
That whole ordeal lasted probably 15 minutes, and we had moved quite a bit down the line during that time. But it didn’t feel that long. Because we were all really entertained.
Six Flags shouldn’t be threatening to ban this woman from the park. They should hire her. They should pay this lady whatever their rate for an entertainer is and then some. She filled a critical void in the Six Flags business model that day. For free. On her own time.
Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear chaperone nametags. And maybe, someday, one will wear a fanny pack! …Oh, right. I don’t need to make this about me.
That’s all I have to say.
TTYL!**
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*Right after writing this, Jason informed me that I shouldn’t mention John Mulaney because Dave Chappelle sucks. Out of pure laziness and an inability to articulate this same idea using my own words, I have removed the word “great” from this blog post.
**Do the kids still say this? Not that I care. I don’t. Really.