Jack Kukoda

Yeah, that’s right. I took the day off on Monday to go to Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey. What of it? What’s that you say? Am I ten years old? No, I’m not. What, just because I’m an adult I can’t go ride roller coasters and/or the log flume/lazy river? Just because I’m constanly in debt and paid my rent 25 days late last month, that means I can’t blow 30 dollars trying to land a softball in a tilted peach basket to win the Lady a stuffed tiger? Is that what you’re saying? Well, if it is, then you can go straight hell for all I care. I went to Six Flags and I loved it. Sort of. Anyway, while I’m waiting for the Lady to send me pictures from the trip, these random images will have to do.

I woke up at 8am on Monday so we could get an early start, but I barely slept anyway. I had been looking forward to Six Flags ever since I went to Coney Island last month. (By the way, here’s a little tip for anyone with a blog. If you write about carnies, not only will they find out about it, they will tell you how displeased they are with what you wrote. For reals.) Anyhow, the Lady and I met up at our friend Laina’s apartment. Laina had agreed to drive there because she is awesome and she has a car. Also, she was able to get out of work on a Monday because she works as a squeegee person and can take off whenever she pleases. “Wait,” you’re probably saying. “Didn’t Guiliani get rid of the squeegee men?” Yes, he did. Except for Laina. She was too wily.

Laina thought that 8:30 was early enough to get on the road. Personally, I wanted to leave at 7am so we could be first in line when they opened the park at 10. Laina did not want to do that, even though I said that we could play Magic:The Gathering while we waited. Screw you, Laina! I use my magic to curse you. Anyway, we got into the park around 10:30 and headed for the rides.

We got in line for the Superman ride, which suspends you to make it seem like you’re flying. Except you’re strapped to a steel roller coaster with 30 other people. And you just go in circles. Other than that, same as flying. We had been waiting for about 40 minutes when they made an announcement that the ride was experiencing technical difficulties and would be out of order for an unknown period of time. I cursed the mother of whoever built the ride and started crying. Not really, but I was disapointed.

We decided to go try another ride. The Great American Scream Machine was next door so we got in line for that one. The GASM is kind of old, but we thought it would be fun and the line wasn’t too long. And really, all we wanted to do was get on a roller coaster, I didn’t care which one. This time we made it all the way through the line up to the little platform where they load you onto the ride. All of a sudden the ride stopped and a pimply-faced teen grabbed the microphone. He announced that this ride was also experiencing technical difficulties and would be closed for an unkown period of time.

When the Lady heard this, she lunged at him with a knife. (Did I forget to mention that the Lady travels with a switchblade? My bad. She joined this all-girl gang at theater camp when she was like 12 and, as they say, you can take the girl out of the deadly theater camp gang, but you can’t yada yada.) Seriously, at this point we were all furious. We had just spent a combined hour and 20 minutes waiting in line for rides that broke down. And there were a couple of ten year-olds ahead of us that told us they had just waited in line for El Toro, only for it to break down. I was composing a letter to Six Flags management in my head. The letter would be written in my own tears and would explain how they ruined my whole summer. I decided to put the letter on hold and give them one more shot. We would ride Kingda Ka.

Kingda Ka is billed as the fastest, tallest roller coaster in the world. It is to roller coasters what I am to lovemakers. Unparalleled. Damn, that was good. You don’t even realize how big it is until you see it next to the other roller coasters. It’s probably twice as high as any of the other ones in the park. The line for Kingda Ka snaked through a special part of the park. All these roller coasters have ridiculous themes and Kingda Ka’s seemed to be the Burmese jungle. There were bamboo trees and fake tiger tracks all over the place. There were also some of the trashiest people I had ever witnessed and teenage girls dressed like whores. I don’t think they were part of Kingda Ka’s theme, just our fellow park-goers.

After about two hours, we finally got to the front of the line. Then it happened. They made an announcement that Kingda Ka was experiencing technical difficulties. I nearly lost my shit. But I composed myself. Another man did not. He jumped over the bar that separated the people about to get on the ride from the line behind them. This man, who looked to be in his mid-thirties and no stranger to Magic:The Gathering, got right up into this teenaged kid’s face and started yelling about how none of the rides were working. The teenager tried to explain that he did not own Six Flags and there wasn’t much he could do about it. So he got his manager. The man then yelled at the manager. As angry as I was about having been in the park for 3 hours without getting on a ride, I did feel bad for the manager. I’m sure his whole summer consists of jackasses yelling at him about how the whack-a-mole game stole their money or how the roller coasters didn’t work. Just as I thought the Magic Man was going to start a brawl, they announced that Kingda Ka was running again.

I can’t really do justice to the ride by describing it, so let me just say that it was the most terrifying experience of my life. Sweet Lord, if the Lady wasn’t there, I probably would have cried. It was fun, though. If you go to Six Flags, I highly suggest riding it.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. We went on some more roller coasters, ate hot dogs, walked into the kid’s section while drinking 16 oz. beers, and played some games. Towards the end of the day, we decided to ride the Conga Rapids. That’s that thing where you get on a giant circular raft and ride around getting splashed. It was okay. Except towards the end, a Six Flags employee filled a Gatorade jug with water and threw it at us. I have no idea if that was supposed to be part of the ride or if he was just being a dick. Either way, it wasn’t much fun.

On the way home, we got pulled over. Not by the cops, but by a prestigious modelling agency. They wanted to take me to Milan and make me a big star, but I told them I had more important things to do. Word up.