I remember when I was young and I loved waterslides. I still love waterslides today but I’m finding that they are a whole new experience when one gets older.
My favorites are the open slides with lots of twists and turns. I have no interest in the slide that has a 90 degree drop. Life can be terrifying enough without adding extra danger. And I am also not interested in these new slides where everyone ends up in a bowl and falls out a hole in the middle. It just seems like those things should be made for balls and pennies, not people.
But to my surprise, the tube/tunnel slides that I always loved as a kid have become terrifying. I decided to go down the tunnel slide this summer because it had a shorter line. Do you know what I discovered? The older you are, the more frightening it is to be somewhere dark, going at a high speed and not knowing where it will ever end. As a kid, I never worried that I was too big and might get stuck in the tube. I never worried that someone else might be stuck in the tube and I would crash into them and suffocate. But now that’s all that’s going through my head as I twist and turn in the darkness. Plus, I don’t remember the slides being that long. Why would they invent these? They’re horrible! How could I ever enjoy that as a kid?!
Have fun youngsters. Enjoy it before you get old and become aware of things like cheap labor for building water parks and how much teenage lifeguards get paid.
