The thing about Lakemont is that as far as amusement parks go, it’s puny. Nothing about it is really “new,” except this time when we were there, we noticed that one of the rides had been removed so maybe next year there will be an upgrade in its place. And how shocking that would be. Especially if it was anything manufactured post-1980.

But for some reason, I love the hell out of this park! People-watching is prime, the rides they do have are an amalgamation of bizarre and retro, and best of all—it’s cheap. Extremely cheap. We always go on the same weekend in September when Lakemont hosts some sort of Altoona craft bazaar, because it’s only $5 that weekend and there is almost no lines to stand in at all.

NOT EVEN FOR THE WINE SLUSHIES.

One of the bigger draws at Lakemont is a small wooden coaster called Leap the Dips, which also happens to be the oldest running coaster in the WORLD.

THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD.

It costs an extra $2.50 to ride it. They didn’t charge extra the last time, but I guess this is their effort to do everything possible to maintain and preserve it for future use. The old man who sold us the tickets was hilarious and teased us mercilessly. He wouldn’t hand over the tickets until I was able to tell him how much it would cost for three. This of course caused sweat-on-the-brain but I was able to answer before Janna and that’s all that matters.

It’s so old that the young farm-handish employee had to actually run and push our car to give it momentum. But not before making fun of my iCarly messenger bag. (He accused it of being Hannah Montana and I felt the vinyl flap featuring Carly and Sam’s mug heat up as it rejected his insinuation. )

Janna and Laura quickly learned the meaning behind “Leap the Dips” as they were nearly catapulted out of their seats when we went over the first dip and our car became airborne.

It’s one fucking rough ride. Henry won’t ride it due to the fact that it agitates his hemorrhoids.

Proof.

Lakemont’s Wacky Worm is definitely the Toboggan (I finally learned how to spell it! Gold stars all around!). This was Chooch’s first time riding it and he took to it immediately. We must have been ejected from that vertical time 20 times that evening. Such a stupid yet fun ride.

If we’re being honest, it was the guys running the thing that kept me coming back for me. They were hilarious and cute and coveted  my iCarly messenger bag. The thing with the Toboggan is that there is a lot of sitting around in the cars, waiting for your turn to be carried up through the tube and then waiting for all of the other cars to come back before being unlatched and set free. But these two guys would walk back and forth, antagoning us, showing us stupid magic tricks and just being all-around completely entertaining.

It made me remember why I enjoy Lakemont so much — the kids working there actually give a shit about their jobs and have fun doing it! What a novel concept!

OK good, I did spell it right.

Isn’t it majestic?

Someone watches too much 16 & Pregnant.

Moments later, I almost lost an arm and leg when Chooch stamped down on the gas pedal before I was all the way inside the car. It was a pretty great scene for all the people standing in line.

This was the first time I was actually proud of my kid. Not for nearly spontaneously amputating me (though I would finally have weighed less!), but as far as riding things at amusement parks go. Of course I’m already proud of his sarcastic, biting words; knowledge of horror movies; and independence in the kitchen. He rode the shit out of everything he was tall enough to ride and I felt like we were really in sync with each other that day as we frolicked from ride to ride; even Henry rode his fair share AND EVEN SMILED AT TIMES.

Considering we had spent the morning screaming at each other over money, the day ended up being pretty spectacular and Henry even held my hand at one point (!!!) and said he was glad he came along after all. See that? My brilliant day trip ideas SAVE RELATIONSHIPS.

Can’t wait to do this again next September! WHO’S IN?

***

On the drive home, Janna admitted to not being able to see, provoking Laura and I to nervously suggest in tandem for her to pull the fuck over. Since I was now driving, I told Janna it was her turn to entertain us, and after whining for awhile about not having any stories, she launched into this shoddily-detailed narrative about going to a party when she lived in DC but then ended up getting a chili dog instead and then parking in a loading dock by her apartment and eating it in the car. I kept waiting for the climax, at the very least a car-jacking, but nothing ever happened other than her eating a chili dog while illegally parked.

Kids, don’t blow off parties for chili dogs or you too will grow up to not have any stories to tell.

[Read Henry's harrowing account of the day here.]

[I have to re-read this every year to remind myself that no matter how caught up in the October spirit I think I am, going to the Apple Fest is a fucking stupid idea. This is from 2008 and I'm reposting it because I can.]

Today we took Captain Vulgarity to the Apple Fest in the ultra conservative farmlands of Western Pennsylvania. One has to park in various fields several miles from where all the apple action goes down and board chool buses doubling as shuttles. Our bus was pretty quiet, and the whole way there I sat with clenched muscles and pinched nerves, praying that Chooch wouldn’t start snarling spontaneous “Asshole“s to the elderly couple adjacent to his seat. The excitement of being on a school bus for the first time seemed to work effectively as a cuss retardant, thank the fucking Lord, so I was able to focus on the adorable lesbian couple in front of me, mouthing along to West End Girls and kissing the top of each other’s heads. Seriously, I wanted to paint a cupcake couple painting for those lucky assholes. (I don’t know WHERE Chooch gets that word.) I tossed a few resentful glares over my shoulder at Henry, who does NOT mouth the words to awesome synthpop songs or kiss me lovingly atop my crown. BUT MY GIRLFRIEND DOES.

If you like kettle corn, the apple fest is a fine place to spend a Sunday. If you like personalized wood-carved toy flutes and crafts made with puffy paint, then the apple fest could potentially complete your mantle collection. Do you like face paint? YOU WILL LOVE THE APPLE FEST. How about the tones of Jimmy Buffet cover bands colliding with whining kids and the grinding horror of chainsaws? Then the apple fest is like one mother of an orgasm contained on one whopping acre.  Is the tied and bound body of your latest victim incomplete without an apple gag? You can buy ‘em by the BUSHEL at the apple fest!

For someone who is not interested in any of the above (the last one, maybe someday), my typical I Hate The World venom was sort of tempered. I only said, “This is so fucking lame, ” once. ONCE. (I’m either growing up or someone plopped a Valium in my tea.) I had one goal, and one goal only: Eat some applelicious delicacies. Keep that pulled pork away from me.

We let Chooch go on some kiddie rides and molest some farm animals. (I saw a retarded man clap after he pet a sheep and I seriously almost died. Between that and the drugfreeworld.org commercials, I’m wondering what the fuck is going on with my heart-frost and estrogen levels.)

Ninety percent of the apple-humpers there were sporting Steelers jerseys and I felt slightly angry about it. But then I saw THREE WHOLE PEOPLE in Penguins shirts and I felt less alone. Chooch cheered when he saw one of those people, too, and I shouted, “That’s my boy.” Then I looked up to the heavens and mouthed “Thank you” when Chooch didn’t tack a gritty “Asshole!” to the end of his cheer.

We followed some shoddy and ill-placed signs for a hayride, hoping to keep Chooch’s attention masturbated since it was growing close to his naptime and his ornery side was beginning to peak. The designated area for the apple fest just isn’t large enough to hold all the fruity wonders and delights that are to be had, so the activities and vendors tend to leak down onto a nearby street. The hayride depot (I don’t know what I’m talking about) was situated next to a church. Henry pointed to a sign on its steps and said, “Let’s go see that.” Because my eyes are as bad as my ears (if not worse), I read it as “Come see the trans.” I was intrigued that a church would have transvestites on display for us hee-haw apple-folk. “How progressive,” I said out loud.

But it was just some model train display.

In the church’s basement, a bevy of booths were set up. As I walked past a stand of necklaces, I accidentally made eye contact with its purveyor, who flitted her hand and said, “They’re made from paper mache!” I fake-smiled and said, “OH OK” and hurried along before she compelled me with the Holy Spirit and Mod Podge. It stunk really bad in there, like church craft fairs often do. Some kind of horrible odor bomb of cooked cabbage, Avon perfume and shitty diapers. Chooch began acting like an orphan who was force-fed caffeine capsules and then turned loose on the world, so we yanked him out of there in time to go on the lamest hayride ever, where I was seated across from some older God-fearing woman who glared at me every time I looked up at her and her teenage daughter who had a broken foot and chowed on a bag of kettlecorn while staring dispondantly off into the horizon. Chooch only said “asshole” once, but no one heard him over the put-put of the tractor’s engine.

The tractor-driver let the wagon glide to a rest on top of a hill, where our screams would be heard by no one for miles and miles and miles. Slowly, he turned around, and as though he were in some sort of cigar and whiskey-flavored fugue, he slurred, “Six feet of snow….nothing but the moon in the sky….what do you think the view would be like up here?” No one seemed to know what to say, so I looked at Chooch and said awkwardly, “Pretty awesome, huh?” The only other person who humored him with an answer was the God-fearing woman, who curtly replied, “Nice.” I kind of felt bad for that old hick; he was just trying to fire up some camaraderie, after all.

Maybe if he would have added flagellation stations and bleeding Stigmatas to the vision, God-Fearer would have been more excited.

There really wasn’t much to see out there. Several cows, but that novelty wears off pretty fucking fast, especially when Chooch got to pet pigs and sheep on the actual festival grounds. In fact, I’m not even certain the hayride was a part of the apple fest. It was probably just some neighboring farmer trying to make a quick buck because his crops sucked this year.

After that disaster of a hayride, I finally got to have some sugary apple slop. Standing in line, I was certain I wanted apple crisp, but as we got closer to the front, that apple pie looked simply to die for, so I changed my mind. Henry went with the apple crisp and we took our plates of fat and calories inside where some old broads were quilting on a raised platform, watching everyone eating at the tables. Awkward.

After two bites of my pie, I stole a bite of Henry’s apple crisp, deemed it tastier than my pie, and arranged for a switch.

“Good thing I know you so well,” Henry grumbled. “I was going to get pie myself, but I figured you would be disappointed and wish you had ordered the crisp.” It’s a good thing, having someone studying my indecisiveness so thoroughly since 2001. He’s somehow always one step ahead of me.

After that, we got in line  to board a bus back to the lot. Some older gent, who took his job way too seriously, shouted commands at us before he’d let us get on. “THE BUS IS APPROACHING. BEGIN FOLDING YOUR STROLLERS NOW. GET IN THE BUS AS FAST AS YOU CAN AND PLEASE FILL UP THE SEATS STARTING AT THE BACK OF THE BUS FIRST.” A hearty brow-swipe followed, and then he stepped to the side to let us through. I’m certain he was reliving the good old days of the Korean War.

We were the first ones on and I was determined to follow instructions. That guy seemed like the type to march aboard the bus and throw out the rule-benders by their ears. So I plunked down in the very last seat, just like my friend Rosa.

Five minutes later, the bus was pulling away, and there were only about ten of us on there. An old man in front of me mumbled, “He was so adamant that we fill up the back of the bus, and there’s hardly anyone on here.”

IT WAS FUNNY BUT I GUESS YOU HAD TO BE THERE.

The strangest thing happened as soon as the sun set on the fair: the grounds became overpopulated with blowouts and Affliction shirts.

“I had no idea Westmoreland County was so close to the Jersey shore,” I said to Henry loud enough for hopefully some of them to hear, provided their ear drums weren’t perforated from too many nights of “beating the beat” at the club.

I guess faux-guidos are the new scene kids.

However, scene kids don’t often roam in packs of entire scene families, like these Jersey-knock offs were doing. I mean, I saw three generations of ridiculous mushroom-cloud mocking hair do’s! It was unbelievable. I realize that MTV didn’t invent this stereotype, but I have never seen such a fine flock of them in person.

In Pennsylvania.

Besides, it’s the COUNTY FAIR. I don’t go to these things to be blinded by bedazzled Ed Hardy t-shirts and assaulted by rigatoni-breath. I want to see red necks! Red necks fighting over chicken bones! I want to see broads with Loony Toon tattoos on their saggy tits! I want to see broads with Loony Toon tattoos on their saggy tits playing tug-of-war with their co-opted baby-daddy!

Grandpa Ronnie. You’re not pulling this off very well, bro.

And the little kids all had blow-outs, too. Jerseylicious parents, this is just wrong. Your son looks less like Pauly D, more like Eddie Munster. Get a fucking stylist, my god. I wanted Chooch to start a fight with that bastard.

There were DROVES of these people. I couldn’t stand it. Yes, I watch Jersey Shore, not going to lie about that. And yes, perhaps they have grown on me (but never Sammi Sweetheart; I keep hoping she dies in a tanning bed). This does not mean I’m OK with being engulfed by a veritable drove of hair gel- and bronzer-hosts while trying to enjoy an evening at the motherfucking fair. This does not mean I’m OK with being bombarded on all sides by their nasally Jersey dialect, husky cacchination and rowdy “Yeah buddy!”s as I try to buy a fucking ice cream cone.

Here, our own Henry wonders if this Sammi-wannabe is DTF.

And this CERTAINLY does not mean I’m OK with them line-jumping in front of me for a ride I have waited all the livelong day to stuff my ass onto. Perhaps one day I’ll tell you that story….

So this one time, I was in line for the Cobra, which I really wanted to ride and it was almost time to leave. The line was pretty long to begin with, but I remained steadfast and vigilant even though I found myself right smack behind a kid trying way too hard to emulate Ronnie, thankfully sans-steroids. He was pretty quiet for the most part until he turned to his left and saw one of his hoochie friends.

“LISA! COME RIDE THIS RIDE WITH ME! LISA!” he shouted in douche-drizzled cadence. And before I knew it, Lisa and her dual-compartment backside luggage of cannoli and fettucine alfredo were planted right in front of me. I let this go, even though she reeked of the cheap hair product scrunched into her black mane, because it had no impact on me not getting on the ride since she’d be sitting with Ronnie’s juvenile doppelganger.

However, the rest of the shore house joined her moments later, spilling out of the line like Atlantic Ocean garbage, and it happened without me even realizing it. (How, I have no clue because everything about these people screams LOUD VOLUME, from their club voices to their stupid clanging bangle bracelets.)

At some point, though, I did realize that two stuck-up broads with Sammi-straight hair had planted themselves between me and Lisa’s carb-lovin’ caboose. That was when I noticed their extended shore house posse commingling nearby.

I was pretty certain these were just kids and I had Henry’s voice reverberating through my head like some paternally obnoxious surround sound reminding me of the Golden Rule: Keep your hands to yourself. HOWEVER, I wanted to ride this fucking ride and I had paid my dues by wasting unlimited minutes absorbing the banality of these strange Italian offshoots. So I opened my big mouth and used my best condescending sneer to say, “Um, excuse me, but I have been standing in this line for fucking ever and where the hell did you people come from?”

I know I looked pathetic as a shit to these girls, too, probably more nerdy librarian than hotheaded scene mom, but I didn’t care. Here I was, some old broad, standing in line ALONE (they didn’t know that I actually did have a friend there with me at one point!), getting all Hall Monitor about line-jumping.

“Uh, I was standing here the whole time. I’m with her,” the Jersey Prom Queen replied in the most grating, punch-worthy lilt of all time, sidling up closer to her friend. She was totally not standing there the whole time, but there was really not much I could do short of putting my hands on her and getting thrown in jail. Over a CARNIVAL RIDE. (You can’t tell me I don’t have some semblance of maturity—look how I rationalized right there!) But I was definitely not allowing the other TEN FUCKERS put me back further in line.

“And these people?” I said with attitude bigger than my flesh innertube, Vanna White’ing my hand over to their posse, who were now staring at me with nervous anticipation (one of them was one of those fucking Eddie Munster-looking things and approximately 8 years old).

“Um, they’re not in line. They’re just standing there, ” she said all self-righteously, which is totally my schtick.

OMG I WANTED TO RIP OFF HER FIVE-INCH-WIDE RHINESTONE BELT & WHIP THE SHIT-EATING GRIN RIGHT OFF HER SPRAY-TANNED FACE.  It’s times like these that I should not be left alone because my hot-headedness tends to skew things. I need sane, mild-tempered people around me to describe to me what the situation really looks like. Janna used to always tell me, “You’re going to get your face shot off one day.”

Then of course I wound up with the seat in front of them so they got to snicker about the old lady who NARC’d on the line jumpers and then rode alone because she has no friends except for the alley cats she shares food with. (I didn’t actually hear them talking about me, but wouldn’t you?)

After the ride, I met back up with Henry and Chooch and told them about my mild confrontation, which I was still irrationally fired up about. Henry, his tone having an undercurrent of “Listen to how this sounds,” asked me, “You started a fight with kids?”

Oh well; at least I didn’t witness any Jersey Turnpiking.

I know, I know — how many times can I possibly go to the fair in one summer and expect anyone to give a shit about it? But you guys, it’s where dreams (and camel toes) are made. And the Westmoreland County Fair in particular brings me great joy because it is full of good memories and rides that hurt so bad, but like child birth*, I’m wired to forget the pain and ride them again and again. I was determined to make it back there, even though the usual suspects (Janna, Blake and Corey) were unavailable to accompany me (so they say). That’s OK – my new friend Laura and her fiancé Mike met Henry, Chooch and I out there because what better place for these new Pittsburgh transplants to get a feel for their new region than by hanging out with unclean carnies and having safety-debatable rides threaten to make Pittsburgh the last place they’ll ever live.

(* I don’t know why I used child birth as my analogy because even though I had a C-Section, I remember everything like it just happened 2 seconds ago, and my answer to doing it again is: FUCK THAT NOISE.)

Laura and I have only had the chance to hang out three times since she’s lived in town (and one of those three times was at my birthday party so that doesn’t count because I was too busy skating to the dulcet sex-tones of Jonny Craig to talk to anyone). But she’s basically my new best friend because she will RIDE things, you guys. I can think of no better way to get over the awkward “you’re new to me” feeling than by throwing caution to the wind and making some fucker-bitch ride named the Superman your christening stroll down Friendship Alley.

Because nothing says “Let’s be close and intimate friends” than being locked in a cage with an almost-stranger and having your bodies meld together as you’re hurled through the air by some shaky steel beam while having your flesh ribboned by the door of the cage, which could have made perfect confetti at our funerals if we had actually perished on that ride. (And there were times when the odds of that happening seemed pretty good.)

Every time we’d reach the ground, I’d scream out in vain, “OVER IT! Let us off now!” but the two carnies operating it never looked up from the pig carcass they were skinning.

It was a good ice-breaker though. I feel closer to Laura than ever, because we SURVIVED something together. We should probably think about getting a tattoo next. After awhile, I just stopped screaming altogether because the physical pain of being smashed against metal made it hard to even breathe. At least now I know I’ll probably just pass out before a serial killer is finished slashing me.

Dear Tropical Amusements,

How about padding the inside of that motherfucker? Or at least advertise that it’s a BYOP (Bring Your Own Pillow) joint. I’m in less pain listening to Miley Cyrus cover Katy Perry songs while being masticated by Snooki’s vagina.

As Sincere as a Gerbil-Stuffed Richard Gere,

The Girl With the Permanent Waffle-Marks Along Her Right Side

Chooch found his own Wacky Worm at the Westmoreland County Fair: some stupid spinning-cup kids ride. The carny operating it had the closest thing to Amish hair this side of Lancaster, PA.

This kid was definitely teaching Chooch double negatives and words like “ain’t.” Oh wait, Henry has already been doing that for the last five years.

Whaddup, Jebediah? Read any good scripture by the light of the oil lamp lately?

[How about I'll write  more when I'm not at work, being BOTHERED by people who think I'm here to do shit for them. I'm feeling overwhelmed because I have a million pictures and words to slap down all haphazardly like I do, but I'm leaving for Tennessee on Saturday and I'M RUNNING OUT OF TIME OMG. Blogging is so serious, you guys.]