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Sunday, January 23, 2011

Runaway Mine Train

There are so many random thoughts in my head!  I bet you've got a few, too. The complete lyrics to Red Barchetta from Rush.  Your high school locker combination.  The complete name of your first bike, and what color it was. The beats per minute to every 80's hip hop/dance song. , (As a former spikemulleted nightclub DJ, I'm stuck with that one)  Your height and weight when you graduated high school.  The name of your elementary school principal.  The boy who threw up on the teacher in 4th grade.  Do we really need to retain all this randomness?  I'd like to make some room for more important things, and these thoughts are certainly getting in the way.


Here's a random one, from my junior high days, from our school trip to the amusement park.  Me and a big group of my dork friends thought it would be super fun to ride one roller coaster as many times as we could in one afternoon.  It was a week day in the early spring, and the line for the ride was basically non-existent.


This is, to my best recollection, straight off the top of my head, the entire, complete, and correct schpeal for The Runaway Mine Train Ride.


"Welcome to the Runaway Mine Train. Please stand behind the yellow safety line and wait for the car to come to a complete and full stop. As you enter the car, please be seated and pull down on the orange safety bar to its' locked position.  Please keep your hands and feet inside the ride, and enjoy your day at Cedar Point.  Thank you for riding the Runaway Mine Train." (done complete with cheesey DJ voice, which I'm an expert at, please see first paragraph)


Okay, this may get lost in translation, but here's why I remember that stupid thing.  We rode this ride 12 times in under 2 hours.  No line.  Run through the turnstiles and back up the wooden stairs to the ride, elbowing each other out of the way for the front seat in the first car.  The funny part was, that at that time, they had high school aged kids who ran the rides, and the operator had to recite the stupid speech over a CB radio lookin' microphone.  This was before them high falootin' crazy automated computer controlled audio systems with them digital recordin' thingies. The sweaty depressed high school kid who's blowing his summer vacation by working at the amusement park has twenty giggling, sugar buzzed, retarded PARROTS who are reciting the whole thing RIGHT ALONG WITH HIM.  His mood dropped along with his shoulders as we, laughing hysterically, ran up the steps one more time.  He sighs as he picks up the mic, and realizes that YES we will be repeating every. word. he. says.  I think I saw him pick up a knife and glare at us, then down at his wrists.....


Now it's your turn.  Do you have a random thought that is stuck in your brain?  Leave it here.  Maybe it will depart permanently from the dark recesses of that puny little brain of yours.  Just don't repeat it over and over again.  That's how I got in this mess in the first place.

8 comments:

  1. nope no random thoughts for me... I am heading into dementia, I am lucky if I remember to put my underwear on!

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  2. just one random thought, and it's linda's fault. she's prob right about the pic. Before thanksgiving i posted a video of how to give a cat a pill (i know. picture the glamour. that is sick.) that was really just intended for the cat-sitter. weird spike in email content that week.

    i have no idea how to leave a comment that leaves a link here. it doesnt' bother me. it's just a technical thing i cannot do. not going for mysterious or anything.

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  3. Average Girl, save me a seat at your table when you get there. I'm right behind ya.

    Mama, Yeah, the cat video.... If it's all the same, I'll pass on that one. I just threw up a hairball.

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  4. Oh, God. You're lucky that operator didn't come after you guys! I thought for sure that you were talking about the Runaway Train at Disney...it's exactly the same one.

    I remember:

    1) My then-16-y.o. neighbor (I must've been...15?) explain to me that you should drive slower when you're tired.
    2) Another friend was watching me wash out my coffee carafe (young adulthood) and remarked that her ex-MIL was such a pessimist that she was convinced that if you washed out the pot right after taking it off the burner, you'd crack the glass. My friend thought of that every time she washed out HER coffee pot and now *I* think of it as well.

    Happy to be passing it on to YOU.

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  5. Thanks for sharing Kathryn #3. There are 3 of you now. WTH? Are you cloning? If so, send one my way, and make me a sammich.

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  6. Same amusement park, 1987. I lived on my dad's boat at the CP marina. There were 2 important lessons:

    If you convince a park employee to give you their CP ID, you can eat unlimited meals at the cafeteria all summer, FREE!

    If you make friends with the right employees, you can do test rides for FREE until the park opens.

    And about the kid who puked in the fourth grade... I thought that was YOU! ;)

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  7. It wasn't me in the 4th grade, but I believe you were in the park when this story took place. And you should have invited me to the marina. Just sayin'.

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  8. Had I known, we could have rocked the boat... Just sayin'.

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