I Scooted My Way to Victory

Oh goodness, embarrassing stories.

One of the first things you will found out about me if you start talking to me, not so much on the internet as Real Life although it still applies to the former, is that I am the living embodiment of the metaphorical concept the Awkward Turtle. I often don't know what to say, when I do speak say offbeat and awkward things, accidentally repeat the same word too many times because I have subconsciously latched onto it (the week or two it was “epic” was particularly painful), etcetera. Sometimes I mentally labor over saying something for minutes at a time and when I do eventually say it and people don't react the way I want, my insides silently shrivel in hot waves of regret and shame. 

These kinds of embarrassments are the most common I have. I suffer them on a daily basis. Not the kind of theatrical blog-worthy thing that is at all interesting to recollect.

But last night I did manage to come up with a memory. Lucky you. Aren't you in for a treat.

So my friend Megan (Psalm118 of OYAN, for those who know what that means) was gracious enough to invite me along with her sister Anna and a girl named Maia to a water park hotel for the weekend a couple of months ago. After a car ride during which feelscreys were shed (yes, we watched a girly movie), we pulled up to this super awesome building complex with some kick-butt water slides sticking out the back, all neon and twisty, shining like a colorful plastic mirage in the afternoon sun. We checked in, settled into our epic (D'OH) suite and donned our swimwear for a day of poolside frolicking. 

Now, no offense to my friends as this is not a put-down toward them but a shameless exaltation of my own Rad Skills, but I was ready to ride everything there, no sweat. I have practically no fear when it comes to thrill rides, so these were going to be a cakewalk for me nerves-wise, albeit a super fun cakewalk. But perhaps my friends have a finer-tuned interest in preserving their well-being because they were more cautious. It took us quite a while to work up to the funnel slide, and this was only through deceiving Maia into thinking it was not That Sort of Slide of Which I Have Spoken. I rode backwards on it without holding on just to freak them out. 

So when we walked to the outside section of the park and there was this giant loopy-majigger thing forebodingly titled “The Vortex”, they were less than eager to join me on it.

 

But I knew I had to go. 

It was my destiny.

How was I supposed to return home and report back to my brothers that there had been a Big Slide there and I hadn't taken up the opportunity to conquer it? The prospect was more shaming than anything.

But perhaps not so shaming as what was to come next.

So there we were, all shivery and cold, staring up and hearing the drop of the platform and watching the figure plummet down the 80 degree angle hearing the screams of pure delighted terror (...perhaps just plain terror), and I knew I wasn't going to convince any of them to come with me. I tried, but eventually I did coerce Anna into joining me in climbing the ladder to to the top wherein I would be sent to my fate. Executed, from the way they were treating my endeavor.

Though truth be told, I was a bit apprehensive myself.

The thing about the Vortex is that the tube is really narrow. You could barely sit up in it, and you go without a tube, on your back with your arms crossed across your chest. The floor flops out from underneath you on a hinge and you fall/slide down this incredibly steep drop, and the resulting momentum is supposed to carry you over the next steep hill, around and down again. I couldn't fathom how you could make it up that far just sliding, but it seemed to be working okay for all the other riders, so I dismissed this fear. 

We climbed the climb. We stood at the top. It was quite tall. We waved to the ants that were my friends at the bottom. 

I made idle chat with a previous rider, watching person after person step into the scary little cylinder and have the floor dropped out from underneath their feet. They slid up, around, and landed in the splash pool, one by one.

Up came my turn. There was only a girl in front of me in line, now.

She stepped into the cylinder. The clear little concave hatch thing closed shut with a hiss like blast doors. The electronic voice came forth: “Three... Two... One.” And she did fall.

Except she made it neither up nor around.

She slid back and forth like a skateboard between two slopes, horrified and panicked, grabbing at the sides and trying to do anything to get control. An employee ran over, keys in hand, to unlock a hatch on the tube and manually evacuate her. 

The girl climbed out, and speed-walked quickly away with her face firmly smothered in her hands. Everyone at the top of the ride was peering over the side with some sympathy. But mostly curious amusement at her incredible failure, who-was-that-girl, and man-am-I-glad-I'm-not-her-right-now. I could only imagine the unparalleled shade of red her face must have been.

Then it was my turn, and all of the sudden, I felt a bit less confident, and my knees were a bit more wobbly under my weight. 

I stepped in. The round plastic platform was wet, slippery. The clear hatch hissed sealed, and with it, my fate.

“Three... Two... One.”

 

I dropped.

It was so hectic, I can't describe it, with water gushing over me and and practically free-falling and screaming in horrified ecstasy. The current smashed over me, roared and rushed and I didn't even have time to register how icy frigid it was. I slid up, and up, and up.

But not over. 

I felt my momentum slip to a crawl, there at the near-top of the incline, and to a halt. I was sliding back and I was going to fall backwards and be manually evacuated and run off with my face in my hands I knew it and gosh I was never ever ever going to live this down why the HECK did I decide to ride this thing help.

I flung both of my hands to the tube walls and held myself there. No. I would not fall. I would not. I was going to save myself, darn it.

So there, in the clear plastic tube which everyone on the ground watched and everyone above observed, I began to scoot. 

I clung to the wet, smooth sides of the slide with my fingertips and I scooted myself up and forward, with increasing confidence, until I made it over the peak and to victory, and with the kind of relief that can only come from a successful scoot I slid down to the end.

The splash pool was so glorious.

“Are you okay?” asked the employee at the end of the ride. “Are you okay?” asked so many people I encountered after that, alerting me to the facts a) that I had obviously had quite a struggle and b) everyone had seen me and c) that I was identifiable as the One Who Had Scooted. 

“Wait, I think she's scooting!” Megan's mom reports that one of the onlookers had cried.

Well, I do suppose it could have been worse.

I had a successful failure.

I was a Succailor.

A Failceeder.

Suck Sailor.

Fail Cedar. 

Yeah.

You can't touch this.

'Twas the day I scooted my way to victory, and no, nobody present shall ever let me live it down. 

Kthxbai.

~Elizabeth