"Super Wimp"

By Victoria Okung

I don’t know who created the Superman, but the name sure fits the ride. It was surely the scariest ride at Darien Lake (well before they added the bungee jump and that “World's Largest Farris Wheel”).

As I recall riding the Superman for the first time, the only thing that comes to my mind is that gut-wrenching feeling that I had all throughout the ride. The 208-foot slow rise to the top left a nervous, anxious feeling in my stomach, and the 205-foot drop caused the most uncomfortable imaginable pain in my stomach. However, I will never forget the feeling of hopelessness I had once the ride was going 73 miles per hour and there was nothing I could to stop and get away from the ride.

I don’t even know why I got on the ride. I definitely did not want to. Maybe it was because I was afraid to look scared in front of all my friends. Through the long-anticipated wait to get on the ride, I kept hoping that something would happen, preventing me from getting on the ride. Maybe the ride would start smoking, or half the tracks would fall apart, or maybe someone’s body would fall off the side, or better yet, maybe I wouldn’t be tall enough to get on the ride.

Yeah, that was it. That was my easy way out.

As my four camp friends and I continued to wait in line, my heart pounded so hard I was sure that everyone could hear it.

“Vicki, stop being such a super-wimp,” said one of my friends as they all laughed at me.

Just then, I thought the Lord was surely answered my prayers. The roller coaster stopped on its way up the 208 foot track. But about four minutes later it resumed and there were no more complications on the ride.

It was my turn to get on. Just my luck, I meet the height standard. Why? Why did I always have to be the tall one? So I hopped in the ride as we continued up the 208 foot slow trail to the top of the coaster. At this point I was crying, and screaming at the top of my lungs. My stomach knotted up as we dropped down picking up to 73 miles per hour.

I don’t remember the rest of the ride, because I blacked out. Or maybe I feel off the ride and plunged into the water below and they took me into a special room where they had to brainwash me for liability issues.

But what I do remember is running to the nearest garbage can. I wanted to look intense like in the movies, how once they get off the rides they throw up. I held onto the sides of the garbage can…but nothing came out.

Victoria Okung grew up in Rochester and is a freshman at the University at Albany, State University of New York.