I took a day off the other week to spend some time with T.J. (my brother). Since I didn’t get him an actual birthday present and he isn’t working yet, I thought it would be fun for us to head to Knott’s Berry Farm for the day. I invited my mom and Albert to join us, but they were both swamped at work so, it was just the two of us and it worked out great in the end. T.J. and I have loved riding roller coasters together since he was finally tall enough to ride them. Knott’s was the perfect place for us to spend the day because they have pretty decent coasters, it’s not a long drive, and the tickets are pretty cheap ($30 a pop). I was really looking forward to getting on some coasters and yelling until my voice was gone. I was especially looking forward to riding Supreme Scream.
We got to the park a couple minutes after it had opened and the first ride we got on is Silver Bullet – it’s probably one of the premier coasters at Knott’s. I was a little apprehensive about taking T.J. on such a “daring” coaster for the first ride, but he handled it like a champ and I think it set a good energy for him to keep riding throughout the day. After a couple more rides we decided to grab lunch. As we sat and ate our lunch, I pulled out the map of the park and showed him what our last ride was going to be…Supreme Scream. I was so excited about it and thought he would be too, but I think I did too good of a job describing the drop/free fall that he stopped me and said, “No, I’m too tired.” That should have been my first sign, but I didn’t think anything of it and said we’ll go on more rides before Supreme Scream. Well, we went on every coaster in the park (except for Accelerator because it was closed)…twice. We found ourselves in front of the entrance to Supreme Scream and I figured now was a better time than any to ride it. I told T.J. to follow me as I practically ran to get in line (yes, I was running, that was how much I wanted to ride this thing. I reached back to grab T.J.’s hand so we can be in line together and that’s when I noticed he was about 15 steps away from me. He wouldn’t budge and just kept shaking his head. Turns out, my brother doesn’t like rides with really high free falls, which is one of my favorites (of course). After spending 15 minutes trying to convince him to get on the ride with me, he won. I figured it’s his day, so I should do whatever he wants to do.
Do you want to know what T.J.’s favorite ride is? Water rides…icky, wet, bacteria-ridden water rides. Do you know that you can contract Legionnaires’ Disease from inhaling particles of the bacteria that originate from infected WATER sources?? ICK. Yeah, I realize this is my mysophobia getting the best of me, but that’s really all I think of when it comes to water rides. And, I’m sure Knott’s does a great job of making sure the water is clean, but still. Regardless of my little quirk with water rides, I am happy to say I rode the Log Ride 3 times and Perilous Plunge twice, all thanks to my brother…who doesn’t seem to care about the potential bacteria on those rides (I even tried to explain it to him, but I think he stopped listening to me). T.J. was happy, so I was happy…soaked in water ride water (makes me shudder thinking about it).
The day ended with him passing out on the ride back to Corona. I may have been covered in sweat, dirty water, and who knows what else, but it was worth it to spend some quality time with T.J. (aka “Butthead”).
On a side note, I highly recommend ditching work to go to an amusement park. Spending the day outside while everyone else is in an office…eating funnel cake at 3pm instead of heading to the office kitchen to search for a little pick-me-up….screaming your head off on roller coasters instead of catering to customers all day long…it felt more liberating that I thought it would be. Plus, the longest we had to wait in line for a ride was 10 minutes. I don’t know if it’s because of the recession or because Halloween Haunt was opening the following week, but it was perfect timing and we definitely got our money’s worth.
