Friday October 10th, 2003
Knott's Scary Farm
In the spirit of doing something different and exciting I accepted an invitation from Dan to "Knott's Scary Farm." For those living in other parts of the world, "Knott's Berry Farm" is one, of way too many theme parks in southern California. Every October they become "Knott's Scary Farm" and the park takes on a Halloween theme.
The group was to consist of nine of Dan's co-workers as well as another ten people that were coming along as dates or friends. Of the nineteen that were expected only eight actually showed up. I didn't know any of them but luckily we had an hour to wait in line before entering the park so I had ample time to become better acquainted.
Since the majority of my life has consisted of various bets between god and Satan concerning how much crap one man can take, I try to enter every situation with unusually low expectations. This however was not the case with "Knott's Scary Farm" on account that the last time I was here (in 2002) it was one of the coolest times of my life. I now found myself in the same place, only this time with my best friend, two single girls, and two couples.
After waiting in line for an hour with a full bladder, I was more concerned with finding a bathroom than hitting on either Jeanine or Rachel. I cleared the line, got padded down, and made a mad dash for the bathroom. On the way a sixteen-year old Werewolf in Nike's jumped toward me and I nearly pissed myself. In my defense this was more out of necessity than fright. I spun around him like a quarterback running strait for the urinal goal posts. Touch down.
We walked around the park as we decided what to do first. We finally settled on "Malice in wonderland," a haunted house / maze with a psychotic " Alice in Wonderland" theme. Outside they sold optional 3D glasses to people who have never been inside one of these mazes. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that neon puffy paint doesn't look any different with crappy paper eye-ware. The line to "Malice in Wonderland" gave me another hour to get to know everyone a little better. Jeanine is a die-hard Cubs fan from Chicago working as a production assistant for Disney. Rachel was born and raised in southern California and is going to school to teach deaf children. The maze itself was alright. You kind of expect it to be a little lame so it's no surprise when you see the strings holding things up and sets that look like a second grade art project.
Next the group decided to go on a roller coaster. What we didn't know at the time was that every person in the park decided the same thing about ten minutes before we did. After the second hour of waiting we could start to see the front of the line. Jeanine has a twin brother who was a bit of a pyro growing up. Rachel went to a private catholic high school even though her family isn't catholic. I always thought that when people said they waited in line for three hours for a roller coaster they were exaggerating, well until now.
It was now nearly one in the morning and we had only done two things. Not too fond of the lines, we unanimously agreed to go to Denny's and call it a night. Jeanine was disappointed they no longer carried the Delidinger; Rachel was a vegetarian who would eat cheese on her salad. I was getting mixed signals from both of them and I wasn't sure whether they were just being nice or if one of them had genuine interest. Rather than alienate one for the other I decided to take the wus approach and not ask either for their number. To be honest I had interest in both of them. This was more of a calculated risk than a wus move since both of them work with Dan and he can find out on Monday if either of them has any interest in me.
Oh god now I have to wait for Monday.
