Here you will find a series of photos (and one 15-second video) illustrating one Henry J. Robbins indulging in a Twin Kiss twist cone.

In this particular photograph, our hirsute subject is telling this writer that he will not eat his ice cream cone if photographs are going to be taken.

Moments later,  our irascible subject lets his guard down and indulges in a quick, hearty, sexual lick; lives to regret it.

Subject’s son eats his ice cream with wild abandon; ice cream lands on shoulder.

Surly subject squats alone at a table with a seafoam background.

Mustachioed Subject attempts to block his ice cream sucking with one lone blue collar working hand, but everyone knows what’s going on behind the meat-fist.

Temper flaring, subject tries to ruin this writer’s camera with an ice cream cone sucker punch; fails.

Subject gives silent treatment for next 30 minutes, refuses to watch ice cream cone cinematic masterpiece:

I had been studying Canobie Lake Park in the weeks prior to our trip. Already, I liked that it had rides that I hadn’t seen anywhere else, rides that are probably popular in gypsy-run carnivals in Eastern Europe that are probably not inspected but definitely have the best motherfucking pierogies you’re ever going to find this side of Hunky poker night in Pittsburgh. And it has three coasters and a darkride! Something for everyone and everything for me.

Canobie has the motherlode of spinny rides, the kinds with the brightly-colored flashing lights and German techno music and random murals of Marilyn Monroe standing on a beach. Alyson kept saying things like, “YES! LET’S RIDE THIS CENTRIFUGAL FORCE TORTURE DEVICE AND BARF ALL OVER OURSELVES!” to which I would cheer while silently hoping that no one actually barfed because HAVEN’T YOU SEEN PROBLEM CHILD!?

The Extreme Frisbee, are you fucking kidding me. When I first saw it, I gave it a million middle fingers with my eyes alone. Something has happened to me along the way where I’m less afraid of puking and more afraid of OMG THAT FUCKER GOES HIGH AS SHIT!! This is why I have refused to ride the SwingShot since my inaugural boarding in 2007, where I honestly though my bowels were going to liquify and seep out of my mouth. But this past trip to Kennywood, I had a change of heart, and ended up riding it THREE TIMES. And I LOVED it. I kept saying things like, “Why was I so afraid of it then?” and “I want to get married on this ride” and “TAKE ME TO PROM, SWINGSHOT! I’ll pretend to be a virgin!”

I applied this revelation to the case of Erin v. The Extreme Frisbee and asked Alyson if she’d ride it. (Chooch was so angry that he wasn’t tall enough, so he and Henry did lame stuff in the meantime.)

“Ohhh, this looks REAL barfy,” she said solemnly, and then headed straight for the entrance.

Alyson ain’t scared of shit, you guys. She is the model riding partner!

In line, I tried to distract myself by talking about Serious Things, like being stalked by CYS-reporting religious nuts and getting Single White Femaled once again, this time by a Married White Female. But soon it was our turn and I honestly almost ran of the ride. Especially when we were the last two to board and found that we weren’t even going to sit next to each other. I didn’t want to die alone!

But the nice ride assistant (they are so nice and super enthusiastic at Canobie, often times making all of the riders scream and cheer before sending them off to their uncertain death) made everyone next to me move down so that Alyson could take the seat next to me. What a gentleman. And then, in effort to mask my fear with humor, I pointed out that the ride was made in Germany.

Of course.

Germany! You motherfucker!

I actually am a 3 ring circus — how did they know!?

And then I just remember sheer terror, roaring gears, and SCREAMING. The kind of screaming that is usually followed shortly by a chainsaw in Texas.

Alyson laughed her ass off through the entire ride. I’m sitting next to her, eyelids clenched, fingers gripping the safety bar and chanting, “WHY WHY WHY WHY OMG OMH WHY WE’RE ALL GONNA DIEEEE” over and over while she’s laughing like she’s being tickled. And that made me laugh too.

But only for a second! Then it was back to motherfucking Germans and their sadistic carnival engineers.

SURPRISE! We didn’t die. And for some fucked up reason, about an hour later I admitted that I wanted to ride it again. And we did too, shortly before the park closed. And it was even scarier / more fun at night. THERE, I SAID IT. I like the stupid Frisbee.

I have found, though, that the secret to success of being a grown-up in an amusement park full of racing-light temptations is MODERATION. Ride a goddamn spinny ride, take a stroll, eat a fucking foodstuff. Then ride some more. And keep doing that.

This does not work for Henry or dummies. Sorry, suckers. Get a better sense of balance or something.

It’s tough when you’re at a place like this with a child though, because it seems that their least favorite things in the world are “taking a stroll and eating fucking foodstuff.” They want to have their brains scrambled and then get back in line to do it again.

Chooch was an impatient jerk when, after riding the Yankee Cannonball (a wooden coaster that may have truncated my spinal column a little bit but Alyson didn’t hear the sickening crack over top of her hysterical laughter), I vetoed his urgent pleas for moremoremore in favor of using the masticated dough of a personal pan pizza to weigh down my stomach lining like absorbant paperweights. A few days later, Chooch was looking at the map of Canobie we brought with us as a souvenir and said something about the Zero Gravity ride that he didn’t ride because of me.

“I didn’t even know they had one of those there!” I cried, because I totally would have rode it with him.

“Yeah, I asked you if you wanted to ride it but you said—” (and here he hires a nasal, whiny tone to mimic me) “—‘Not right now! I need to eat something and then ride something calm!'” And he also scrunched up his arms like a T-Rex and fluttered his fingers, because this is his Erin impression which is awesome to know.

At least he got to ride some spinny/bouncy ride by himself while the grown-ups were eating, god forbid.

Speaking of grand impersonators, a pseudo Justin Bieber took the stage next to us and treated us to a thrilling display of lip-synching and Martha’s Jazz Barn choreography. Alyson mentioned that she didn’t even know any Bieber songs, WELL NOW SHE DOES! And hopefully the next billion times she hears one in a grocery store, she will think of me!

Later, we were in line for another spinny ride called the Skater and were thoroughly entertained by this beefy sports fan who rejoiced in cries of “AWESOME!” and “YEAAAAH!” kind of like Lil Jon, which made Alyson and me crack up because he just did not seem like the kind of guy who would be so joyous on an oversized skateboard spinning up and down a ramp. But he was REALLY FUCKING FEELING IT and I looked over at Henry, who was standing off to the side of the Skater, eating a blue Italian ice, and thought, “Why can’t that asshole enjoy these rides too!?” Maybe if there was a SERVICE-themed amusement park.

When it was our turn, I wound up sitting next to a friendly but boundary-crossing guy and who was pretty much using the entire left side of my body as his afternoon nap apparatus. Dude was fucking heavy! Meanwhile, Alyson was teaching Chooch to hold up his hands, metal-style, and scream “Slayerrrrr!”

When we got off the ride, I started cracking up all over again because Skater’s #1 Fan & Afternoon Nap Guy belonged to each other!

(l to r) Skater’s #1 Fan & Afternoon Nap Guy.

SLAYERRRR!

****

I’m trying to keep this as condensed as possible, but the fact is, we never get to hang out with Alyson and I want to remember every thing that happened! I don’t want this to be all tl;dr (that means “too long; didn’t read,” BARB!) so I’m splitting it up into several parts. Sue me!

The day I left for vacation, one of my Gerber daisies perished. Amber1 left me a distraught message about it on Facebook and said she wasn’t sure if it was Rhoda or VOLTRON, but that she felt really bad. Amber2 suggested it was due to stress since I had relocated their pot behind Gayle before I left, so that they wouldn’t have to be alone.

When I came back to work yesterday, it was sad seeing the empty stem that was once Rhoda, but I was pleased to see that VOLTRON survived in my absence.

UNTIL TODAY.

As soon as I got to work, I noticed that he was wilting, almost in mourning posture and it made my heart break. I watered him, thinking maybe he was thirsty? I don’t know!! I’m new at parenting plants. Well, apparently watering him exacerbated the situation, and by late afternoon, he had bowed even lower.

Nate came to offer his assistance, and together we fashioned a splint out of a plastic knife.

However, I think this might have made things worse and humiliated poor VOLTRON to boot. Nate, grasping for straws (literally—a straw was his first suggestion when we were about to MacGuyver handicapped accessories but he ended up not being able to find one), even said a little prayer for VOLTRON.

(“dear god, save VOLTRON” is how I think the religious spell went.)

(Jeannie witnessed our awkward gardening experiments and shook her head accordingly. Jeannie hates daisies, pass it on!

)

Alas, VOLTRON bit it by that evening. I tried to adjust his knife-splint and three quarters of his petals fluttered to the ground like really pretty dandruff. Sue stopped by for a consult and confirmed that yes, VOLTRON had expired. She advised me to chop off his head*, so I did. I lopped it off with my fake blood-coated scissors like I was Winona Ryder and he was Gary Oldman’s Dracula.

And then I made a Gerber daisy Glenn to add to the RIP wall. :(

*(New ones might grow? Reanimated daisies?)

daddy didn’t go on the turtles because he’s such a cry baby. he also did not want to go on the arrow three 60 but I did and the swing shot. mommy said I was so scared to go on the arrow 3 60 but I wasn’t. I sat by a girl with red hair and mommy sat by a girl with black hair. [Ed.Note. And these are details that Chooch remembers because the girls were his type: TEENAGERS.]

mommys lying! its not true. it’s daddys type!! derp trolled

me and mommy went  on the whip and the guy said enjoy your ride and when the ride started mommy mocked the guy and on the whole ride mommy kept saying ENJOY YOUR WOOOOIDE IT was annoying.

{Ed. Note: OMG THAT LITTLE FUCKER, he was laughing so hard when I was doing that! Now he has to act all hard core for the Internet, WTF.]

fml

me and laura were talking about minecraft servers while mommy and daddy went on the thunderbolt.

I got to go on the swingshot and the aero360 [Ed.Note: I spelled it for him this time because I could stand it no longer.] and cosmic chaos and phantoms revenge for the first time  this year!  I feel sad and happy and mad. [Ed.Note. Perhaps we should get him some therapy.]

nuh uh I should not have a therapy!!!

I kept squishing mommy the first time we went on Musik Express.

Laura was squishing me on the Musik Express. I was not scared.

I won. [Ed.Note: NO HE DID NOT. HE ONLY WON AT WASTING OUR MONEY, THANK YOU, NICE TRY.]

enjoy your woooooooooide.

We made it somewhere right outside of Connecticut by the end of Driving: Day One*, and crashed at some sketchy hotel in New York.

*(There were videos in that post that I don’t think were working when I initially published it, but I just embedded them from YouTube so now everyone can run right on over to watch them. No really. RUN! RUN LIKE SNOOKIE IS CHASING YOU WITH HER KOOKA ALL A’THRUST!)

Woke up super early the next morning—after barely sleeping at all thanks to my log-sawing travel compatriots—in order to drive the remaining four hours and make it to Alyson’s house at a reasonable hour, because hello — we had an amusement park to go to! I really enjoy road trips. I like sitting my fat ass in the passenger seat, complaining about being bored, fidgeting with the music, and regaling tales of shit that no one in the car cares about. Mostly, I like not being home and the anticipation of arriving somewhere new. This all goes out the window once we hit traffice. Which we did, for what seemed like HOURS. (But was apparently only about 30 minutes.)

I was nervously excited about seeing Alyson again. We met on LiveJournal back in 2005, introduced by her shitty then-boyfriend, and hit it off immediately. On the outside, we seem very different: she’s metal, I’m a scene kid. But we LOVE THE CURE and share an inside joke regarding that. We have the same ridiculous humor and we find the simplest, most mundane things to be HILARIOUS. Things that make most people (see: Henry) raise their eyebrows. (Or, in Henry’s case, frown.) Music touches our souls in ways that seem confusing and strange to others because, you know, we’re not 16 anymore and it is apparently bizarre that we will travel great distances and go to such lengths to see our favorites perform live.

We also get fucked over in a myriad of astonishing ways by a virtual conveyor belt of “friends,” but are actually just people obsessed with their own unhappiness. Alyson and I first met in person back in 2006 when she traveled to Pittsburgh to attend my baby shower. And the last time I saw her was in 2008 when she returned for our mutual friend Kara’s wedding. It has been a long time between visits and I wondered if she would decide that I was more annoying than she remembered or that Chooch was a brat (very real possibilities!). YOU NEVER KNOW! 

But no, we fell right into a groove, begging Henry to speak of the SERVICE and Ted Nugent; sharing stories of our favorite bands and the singers who have shat upon our hearts; and finding sheer delight in the small things all day at Canobie Lake Park, while having our stomachs churned and our brains scrambled. I have always felt that if we lived closer, we would be even better friends.

And I was so happy that she suggested we visit her local amusement park a few months ago in an email, because I’m always scouring the Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiasts website for parks to go to so I’ve known about Canobie and their darkride called Mine of the Lost Souls and was really hoping it would be a possibility to go there on our trip. And Alyson even seemed excited when I replied to her suggested itinerary and said, “CANOBIE!”

What a perfect way to spend our first day together! Laughing like little kids at some old, charming amusement park. What a perfect way to catch up: while standing in line for spinny rides, pausing here and there to point out shitty tattoos and eavesdrop on other conversations while taking pictures of Henry looking exhausted and totally put-upon.

And what a great way for her to bond with Chooch, who took to her immediately and helped himself to a self-guided tour of her home as soon as he walked through the door. The last time he saw her, he was about 2 and a half years old and somehow he actually remembers this. A few weeks ago, I tried to show him her picture on Facebook so that he would know who we were going to see, and he said, “I know who she is. We went to Eat n Park when she was here. I sat on a motorcycle.”

TRUE STORY!

Anyway, we were only in her house for about a minute when I realized we had been pronouncing “Canobie” this whole time. It’s not actually like Obi Wan Kenobi! But CAN-uh-bee. Chooch and I kept catching ourselves beginning to say it wrong all weekend, but Henry flat out kept pronouncing it wrong, because when you’re a SERVICE veteran, you can get away with shit like that.

And then I pointed out that she has a Troy Polamalu bobblehead, to which she responded, “Yeah, YOU got it for me!” Even Henry remembered, but I completely drew a blank.

“Did I KNOW that I got it for you?” I asked jokingly, with a little bit of truth.

Yep, that’s me: That totally attentive friend whom everyone desires.

And we hadn’t even gone to the park yet so I couldn’t blame it on Canobie whiplash.

In typical Oh Honestly, Erin-form, this needs to be a multi-parter because I have a ton of photos to wade through and happy thoughts to sort out and hopefully an official Henry Interview to transcribe. Ciao for now!

(I actually never finished the 2013 Kennywood Chronicles, either. BLOGGING ANXIETY. Maybe I’ll make Chooch finish it for me.)

We’re officially back in Pittsburgh and I’m so sad (but super happy to be back home with MARCY who I missed terribly and text-harassed Janna the entire time we were gone for Marcy status reports). This has been a really fast-paced, fulfilling and totally fun tour of terror (hello, we had Chooch with us). We did everything from amusement parks to New Hampshire beaches, Witchy Salem things to (quietly) mocking the Bruins in Boston, disrupting Lizzie Borden’s ghost to eating at Mystic Pizza in Connecticut.

But the best part was that we got to see friends we rarely get to see (and one we had NEVER seen in person!), and that was my favorite part of the whole trip.

Literally, the only lowlight was that I forgot my good camera at home and that we didn’t have quite enough time* to meet up with everyone we’d have liked to (Massachusetts Alyson & Amelia, I’m looking at you!). But New England rocks and I’m sure we will be back!

It is going to take weeks to memorialize in writing.

*(The whole trip was relatively poorly planned, but why should anything ever be easy with us?)

[I’m still on vacation so I asked my buddy Alex from Everybody Loves You to help fill the festering void that is my abandoned blog while I’m gone. I’m posting this from my phone in some sketchy hotel outside of Boston, so apologies in advance if the format is all jacked.

I think this post is apropos because my friends Matt and Kristen tried to get Henry to order whiskey at dinner last night and just the thought if him drinking something so manly made me die. Whiskey is the opposite of Faygo, you guys.]

A recommendation of a place I’ve never been to…

I’m a lightweight. I can only handle a maximum of four drinks before I start to get a massive headache and tumultuous tummy. This hardcore hangover then lasts around eighteen hours, the majority of which are spent lying feverishly in bed with the occasional puke-sprint to the toilet. Since my tolerance is so low, I steer clear of pretty much everything but beer. Sure, I may partake in celebrating Cinco de Mayo by chugging a Big Azz Margarita at Mad Mex, but my days of Jagerbombs, Colt 45 forties, Goldschlager shots and Flaming Dr. Peppers are firmly behind me.

Despite my naturally-induced temperance, I really want to try some Wigle Whiskey for two reasons. Firstly, watching six seasons of Mad Men* has convinced me that to be a real man, I need to drink more hard liquor. And when it comes to booze, does it get any more masculine** than saying “I’ll take a whiskey on the rocks”? Nope!

Secondly, Wigle Whiskey has wiggled itself to the top spot on the list of institutions where hip Pittsburghers matriculate. If you don’t frequently tweet superlatives about your visits to Wigle or the other establishments on this esteemed list – Bayardstown Social Club, Harvard & Highland, Fukuda and Espresso a Mano – then you’re just not that cool. I’ve not been to one of those places, but I gave up trying to be cool years ago when I got a Chinese character tattooed on my ankle.

Wigle Whiskey is located in the Strip District and hosts tasting tours Tuesday through Saturday starting at 10am. I recommend waiting till at least noon until you start chugging. Salud!

*There’s just no better way to express masculinity than by coming home late from work, ignoring your family and sitting at the kitchen table while staring into space with a cigarette in one hand and a scotch in the other.

** You want to know what the antithesis of a man’s drink is? I once ordered a Chocotini at Jack’s and my friends still remind me about it. Definitely not my finest moment…

some gas station god only knows where.

We said peace out to Pittsburgh on Friday for a New England road trip. Our first stop is New Hampshire, so we drove as long as possible and crashed at some hotel in New York.

I got reaallllllly hyper when “Magic” by America came on the radio.

This video cuts off right as Henry screamed at me to stop.

There’s not much more to note about the first leg of our drive because Chooch spent most of the time reading in the backseat and Henry and I argued about who hates each other more.

sick curtains, bro

The Cure’s “Charlotte Sometimes” came on the new wave XM station just as we pulled into the sketchy Days Inn, which Henry bartered to get a lower rate—why can’t he do that at flea markets??—and then “Boys Don’t Cry” played as we checked out the next morning, so in spite of having a horrible night’s sleep thanks to my travel companions snoring like basic bears:

…I still took this as a sign that the day was going to be awesome. And I was right, because when we arrived at our friend Alyson Hell’s house in Nashua and gave her the first hugs since 2008, the day only proceeded to get better and better!

(P.S. there was a guy staying in the room next to us who resembled Jonny Craig kind of and Chooch and I both blurted it out at the same time. Henry told us to shut up.)

There is something about Kennywood, more than any other amusement park, that triggers something in my head and makes every single thing so fucking funny to me. I was talking to Barb about this at work the other day, and as an example I said, “Remember that one time I went to Kennywood and Janna hit her head on the train—-”

“—yeah, and you thought it was the funniest thing in the world,” Barb* finished for me with a sigh. Granted, Janna can injure herself anywhere—on a farm, on a boat, at Planned Parenthood—and it’s the funniest thing in the world to me, but when it happens at Kennywood? Bitch, you best hold up your splatter shield because I’m about to piss all over your shoes.

*(I have to namedrop Barb to get her to read my blog.)

Being at Kennywood is like being a kid again and having a parent nagging you to grow up (Henry) but not giving a single fuck because hello, you’re at motherfucking Kennywood, eating square ice cream cones and making people ride on things that they really truly don’t want to ride but you just keep whittling away at their resolve like it’s a piece of driftwood about to resemble their dejected face.

And I’ll tell you, I need to document every moment of it, because someday, maybe years from now, maybe next winter, I’m going to be depressed about something probably Jonny Craig-related and I’m going to want to have something to cheer me up, and since Henry probably will still be too cheap to buy me an engagement ring or a wheelchair from 1897, I’m going to start fishing around my blog archives, looking for happy memories that might make me LOL through the tears.

And then I’ll come across this picture that Laura took of Chooch and me on the Kangaroo, right after Chooch gave me a disgusted look because we had to switch sides so I wouldn’t turn my son into an adolescent pancake with the sheer force of my mammoth body against his, and we were sitting behind a picture perfect family who collectively cooed “WheeeEEEEEE!” every time their car went over the kangaroo jump, and Chooch and I mocked them openly and they probably definitely were aware of this, and my hair was all damp and kinky from the rain. And I will momentarily forget the bain of my sadness because now I’m reliving happy memories, and this is why true bloggers blog, people!

On the Whip, I kept screaming, “ENJOOOOOOOOY YOUR WWWWWIDE!!” in an obnoxious Elderly-Jewish-Lady-Talking-Like-A-Baby voice and it was making Chooch laugh so hard, so that made me do it even more obnoxiously, like every time we’d be about to be whipped around the bend, I would cry out, “Oh! Oh! Oh! ENJOOOOOOY IT!!!!!!!” So then we kept saying it to each other all day and Henry would just look at us quizzically and frown, because god forbid he’s not part of the inside joke. (Is he ever?)

Henry had to ride something with me, oh noes.

Thankfully, the Thunderbolt is one of two rollercoasters at Kennywood that doesn’t have a stupid camera waiting to take the World’s Worst Photo of you. I don’t know what it is about those things, but they make me look a million times worse than I thought I actually look. I mean, I feel as though I didn’t look too bad when I left the house that day; I brushed my hair, put on makeup, wore things that weren’t ill-fitting or made of Lycra from the Tila Tequila Collection, yet somehow I look like Throw Mama From the Train in every one of those photos, like my body is just a mound of fat and cellulite and pale, sweaty skin that was poured into a mold loosely based off of Honey Boo Boo’s mama, stuffed into a rollercoaster seat and then topped with the head of bulldog, the face of which will somehow managed to be pulled in three different directions while the mouth is opened in Ready-To-Receive-Penis-stance at the precise moment the flash goes off.

Ta-da, here’s your $15 proof that Weight Watchers ain’t doing jack shit!

Fuck it, let’s go have ice cream!

Laura is having the wrong ice cream.

Henry was very adamant about me not capturing a photo of him deep-throating his ice cream cone andkept making threats to post retaliation photos of me on Facebook. Oh, OK.

Meanwhile, Chooch is like, “Did someone say pictures? Bring it!” He’s ready with a pulled-face within seconds of me pointing the camera at him. It’s a wonder his school pictures don’t look like this, too.

HAHAHAHAHA. That’s some ferocious cone-sucking. It’s like he’s fishing for bone marrow. Get it, girl!

One of my Top 5 moments of the day was when Chooch, Laura and I were in line for the Auto Race, which was probably the only line we actually stood in all day, aside from the Phantom’s Revenge clusterfuck. The Auto Race is like a Kennywood institution at this point and all the parents want to ride on it with their kids while telling them about what Kennywood was like back in the day when bitches used to wear ball gowns and get down in the dance hall.

My earliest summation of Kennywood is that everyone used to wear fanny packs and neon everything, but unless it involves me taking out a line of credit so Chooch can play all of the games, he doesn’t give a shit about my Kennywood memories.

So instead, we spent the duration of the ride laughing our fucking asses off at Laura, who realized at the very last minute that not only was she going to have to ride alone, but she was going to have to sit in the back of the car, because the driver seats are designed to accommodate children and Ethiopian supermodel asses only, thanks, now please take the backseat.

Laura’s invisible chauffeur, also known as “air,” probably gave her a smoother ride than my driver, that’s for sure.

Seriously, I went to high school with a bitch who was modeled after Laffing Sal. Her parents should consider that a success.

The train ride was kind of like the “time out” of the day. It was good to sit down and decompress and make gagging noises when we passed the river.

I hate the fucking river.

Dum-dum Daddy didn’t want to go on the train because he’s such a crybaby and so scared to go on it so he decides to sit on the bench and hold mommy’s and my drinks but then he DRANK IT ALL. — Chooch

Henry sitting alone made Chooch and I crack the fuck up, but then the train ride started and Laura was all, “Shh! I’m trying to hear what the man is saying!” God, nothing important! Just historical facts about the park, Laura! Why don’t you just go to a library if you want to learn!

Anyway, Laura shushing us worked, because we spent the rest of the train ride moderately well-behaved.

MORE LATER! OH BOY!

Here are six pictures.

Six pictures of Henry.

Six pictures of Henry cutting the grass.

I had to stop because I was afraid he was going to mow over my foot and hello, I’m wearing white crochet TOMS.

Chooch got his hair crafted into Warped Tour-approved follicular fringe this morning and bitched and whined the entire 15 minutes he was there. He kept saying he was “so scared” and Lucia—my stylist since 2004, I love her—was like, “Um, OK. Don’t you like zombies? And you’re afraid of getting your hair cut? Weirdo.”

Afterward, he was like, “Whatever, as long as MOMMY likes it.” Because that child knows what’s up.

I promised him that we could go to the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts afterward, because bribery gets me super far as a mom. On the way back, we had the unfortunate luck of falling into step behind a mom pushing a baby stroller and two younger-than-Chooch boys walking next to her. They took up approximately three quarters of the sidewalk and walked slower than a hoarder at the flea market. Had we crossed the street a half second sooner, we’d have managed to cut in front of them.

You may have not ever seen me walk in real life, but please believe that I walk fast and with purpose, without actually ever having any purpose but no one needs to know that. Keep pretending like I am walking to my high-powered job on Wall Street.

I kept trying to skirt around these sidewalk hogs, but Chooch wasn’t following my cues so I’d have to fall back behind them again and join Chooch’s quicksand cadence. These staccato little steps. Tiny shuffles. Maddening slowness. I wasn’t in a hurry to be anywhere but I suddenly had this dire need to be home immediately.

But the thing with Chooch, and any kid really, is that he doesn’t quite grasp the need for personal space, so he was right up on these people like he belonged to them which made it look like this poor prematurely gray-haired mom was walking down the street and oh boy, there’s her bastard ducklings, too. God help them if they had stopped abruptly because they’d be stuck wearing Erin and Chooch backpacks.

And then Chooch has to use his megaphone tone to ask me questions about them.

“Why are they walking so slow? Where are they going? They’re seriously walking really slow, right? Aren’t they, Mommy?”

One half second!!

Sensing our uncomfortable closeness, she called over her shoulder, “Feel free to pass me!” Not in a snotty tone, but one that showed she understood my need to walk with enormous strides and not stare at the asses of her meandering children all the way down the street for god only knows how many more blocks.

“OK thanks!” I answered in my best imitation of “cheerful” that I could muster and steered Chooch by the shoulders so that he was on the open side, allowing us to pass them in a singe file line.

But no. This is not what Chooch did. Chooch decided to WALK RIGHT NEXT TO HER like he was her fourth spawn, leaving me alone to follow in their wake, like I’m the pathetic step-kid. I kept thinking about that motherfucking half second.

Totally fucking awkward. 

I kept trying to push him ahead of them without it appearing that I was opening abusing my son, just some fingers in between his shoulderblades, nothing to see here Officer, but Chooch was absolutely not taking the hint. Just kept walking, side-by-side, with this lady, a stroller and  his new brothers. (They did not look like children Chooch would get along with, by the way. All crew-cuts, khakis and Crocs.)

By this point, it had only technically been two blocks, but I felt as though my hair must have been mirroring this lady’s silver strands. One gray hair for every tiny baby step. It felt slow motion was liquefying my flesh, rendering it into some kind of slow poke simple syrup and oozing it into the cracks of the sidewalk, like I was your basic, walking Salvador Dali painting, melting into the permanence of this scene where I would live FOREVER AND EVER OH GOD HELP ME. ONE MOTHERFUCKING HALF SECOND!

After a few blocks of this faux-coziness, the mom paused at a street corner and turned to cross over to the other side of the street.  We needed to continue going straight so I did a little fist pump and began to take exaggerated lunges down the sidewalk as if to illustrate to the West Liberty Avenue traffic just how fast I really can walk.

But then I noticed that Chooch wasn’t with me. Oh, because he was still with his new family, waiting to cross the street with them.

“What the fuck,” I muttered and backtracked to retrieve him.

“I was waiting for my pass,” he cried as I steered him back in the correct direction.

“What pass?” I asked.

“That lady was going to give us a free pass!” Chooch cried. “For Kennywood, probably!”

“She wasn’t giving us a free pass! She said ‘Feel free to pass me,’ you dummy!” And then I laughed, because that’s what good moms do when their kids are being dumb.

And then we somehow managed to walk the remaining three blocks home without incident.

We bought Henry a pink donut at Dunkin’ Donuts just so we could take a picture of him eating a pink donut. Ordering his stupid donut was probably what knocked us ONE HALF SECOND off course. Thanks, Henry.

Even more than amusement parks, county fairs, road trips and cemetery heat waves, my favorite thing about summer is WARPED TOUR. (Which you already know if you’ve known me for at least 15 days. I have framed pictures of the damn thing on my desk at work for fuck’s sake.

)

The tour officially kicked off a few days ago and I have been salivating over all of the pictures they’ve been throwing up on Instagram. One more month until it’s here in Pittsburgh and I can hardly wait! Chiodos! Sleeping With Sirens! Hands Like Houses! The Wonder Years! letlive.! The Used! Man Overboard! BRING ME THE HORIZON! Plus all the bands I don’t even know that I like yet!  I can’t even. An entire day to be amongst my own people!

What’s notable about this year’s Warped Tour is that it will be Chooch’s first ever time attending!

We almost took him last year, but decided against it at the last minute. But ever since he went to the Pierce the Veil show (and found out his 8th grade cougar-girlfriend will be there), he has been expressing interest in going with us this summer and it’s not like I would ever try to discourage that! I really think he’s going to fucking love it. There’s so much going on there that if he needs a break from the music, he’ll be covered. And I’m sure Henry will be using him as his scapegoat.

“Oh, boy….uh, it looks like Chooch needs to….sit down. Under a tree. And take a nap. BBL KBYE.”

Maybe I’ll try to get them both to guest post about it afterward.

Anyway, I’m posting this not just because I’m excited but also because I needed a break from writing about Kennywood because the residual giggles are apt to get me fired from my job that is how obnoxious I’ve been here this week. Sorry, co-workers! I’m trying to get my psychotic, worrisome laughing fits confined to my desk but sometimes they slip out in the bathroom and the kitchen and every single hallway I’ve tread on today.

No Jonny Craig at Warped Tour this year, too bad so sad.

OK, I need to get back to penning my Kennywood prose so that my detractors can get ready to tell me how grammatically incorrect my “writing” is, at which point I will pause to remind everyone that all I do is post iPhone photos and YouTube videos of my favorite songs, so like…what writing?

Above is a photo of Laura loving life as she rode the Turtles at Kennywood, which is evidently her most favorite ride ever. There was probably a Carpenters track playing in her head,  even. Too bad her life was about to change FOREVER a little bit later when she became involuntarily AMPUTATED on the PHANTOM’S REVENGE.

Shit, now I’m getting my parables mixed up.

Anyway, what happened was Laura, Chooch and I were walking toward the Exterminator (Henry was there somewhere) when Laura (this was all LAURA’S idea), threw a wrench into our well thought-out plan by saying, “Or we could just go on this…since we’re here…” and did a lazy Vanna White with her hands toward the entrance of the Phantom’s Revenge.

We had already went on this twice earlier in the day. The first time, we absolutely, postively walked right onto the platform and right the fuck onto the ride, that is how empty Kennywood was that day. Even on not-too-crowded days, there is still usually some sort of a line for this ride, because it’s the Big Shot Steel Coaster up in that piece, and everyone wants to take their turn on it, like the roofied guy at the sorority party. Oh wait. I’m sorry. I’m confusing genders.

The second time was actually a continuation of the first time, because when the coaster came back to the station, there was no one in line still, so the Kennywood peeps were all, “Hey, you guys can stay on if you want” so we did and it turns out that’s not so fun afterward, riding it with no break in between, when you’re in your thirties and not a seven-year-old like Chooch who was like, “THAT WAS AWESOME LET’S STAY ON THIS FOR THE REST OF THE DAY OMFG!!” as he pushed his eyeball back into its socket.

You should have seen Henry afterward, all clammy and green around the gills, wherever the hell his gills are, like he had just suffered through a particularly traumatizing Ludovico Technique featuring footage of all nine years of his loveless past marriage. (Past marriage.  Like there’s a present marriage. Hmph!)

So after Laura suggested riding it for the third time, Henry obviously was like, “Thank you sir, but I will NOT have another,” and proceeded to walk toward the exit of the Phantom’s Revenge, where he waited like an obedient puppy with his master’s purse. The rest of us ridiculed him for being a pussy and ran through the empty queue to the platform, where we saw there was a small line. We chose the seats that had the fewest number of people waiting and made sure that it was lined up evenly so that the three of us could get on at the same time.

Meanwhile, there was some sort of seat belt malfunction going on. The coaster was sitting there idly, full of passengers, but the ride attendants couldn’t send it off because of whatever was going on.

“We need someone to sit in this seat!” one of the teenaged boys in a Kennywood polo shouted. “There’s nothing wrong, but we can’t send this on with this car empty! It’s not a mechanical problem, just this one seatbelt!” And he was holding the seatbelt, too, as if that was going to reassure people.

And who wouldn’t be OK with putting their safety into the hands of a college kid on summer break?

Everyone started murmuring to each other about not wanting to ride in a car with a broken seat belt, even though it was only one of the seats in the car– the other one was apparently functioning properly, so only one person could sit in that seat. Some dumbass single rider was all, “Whatever, yeah, I’ll do it,” sparking a collective outcry regarding his stupidity. Some older woman in the line next to us was FREAKING THE FUCK OUT about this and her kids (her KIDS) were trying to calm her down. “They’re not going to let people ride it still if it’s actually broken, Mom!” one of the kids cried in frustration.

“But they’re using A REAL PERSON as a dummy!” she countered.

They sent the coaster up the hill, and we all turned and watched as it raced down the hill a minute later.

“No, he’s still on it. I saw him,” Laura assured me and Chooch. I wanted everyone to clap when the coaster returned to the platform with the idiot Single Rider still fastened into his seat, but everyone seemed to have lost interest by then.

However, that became the temporary designated single rider seat for the time being while the attendants waited for the maintenance guys to arrive with a new seatbelt. “Shit, they’re going to make me sit there!” Laura cried when it dawned on her what was going on. Chooch and I, of course, nearly gave up our asshole ghosts from laughing so hard at her future misfortune.

Just then, I looked ahead and noticed that the girl who was in front of us had moved over to the Broken Seat Belt Line, which meant that Chooch and I were next. We kind of half-heartedly tried to find someone to go ahead of us so that we could ride at the same time as Laura, but everyone behind us was perfectly lined up with their respective groups as well and didn’t want to give up their spots. So we shrugged a disgenuine “sorry” in Laura’s general direction, and then climbed into the car, leaving her alone on the platform. The guy behind her was laughing at our mock-sorrow, which made the whole situation even funnier to me.

When we came back to the station, we gave her a quick wave and then ran away to find Henry, who looked confused that we were short one person. So Chooch and I hysterically recounted the broken seatbelt situation (“I know, I saw the maintenance men go over there so I figured something was wrong,” Henry interrupted, fulfilling his inherent need to speak of any sort of man in uniform) and then started laughing even harder when we got to the part about ditching Laura.

“AND NOW SHE HAS TO SIT IN THE BROKEN SEAT!” we cried, doubling over in laughter.

“You two are both assholes,” Henry yelled at us, but that was the same time we realized that the coaster was ascending the inaugural hill, so Chooch and I ran closer to take a picture of what we were lovingly referring to as “Laura’s Last Ride.”

(Time out. I am going to pause here for a second so I can walk off this ridiculous laughter before I start alarming people at work again.)

ENJOY YOUR LAST RIDE, LAURA!

We ran back to Henry, who was scowling and trying to shrug away from his hyena-brood. At this point, I was on the pee-precipice and it wasn’t looking too good. Passers-by were starting to flash Chooch and I the “I wonder what they’re on” looks, which yes, I DO get a lot, now that you mention it.

And then finally, Laura came padding down the exit trail, looking disheveled and not very pleased.

We immediately started laughing harder. Oh, schadenfreude! My old friend!

“That was the most awkward ride ever!” Laura cried. Apparently, the maintence crew had fixed the seatbelt situation after Chooch and I got off the ride, so Laura wasn’t relegated to sitting in the Single Rider Death Seat. However, when she stepped across the seat to put her purse in one of the cubby holes, she turned around to discover that people behind her had taken her seat. So she had to walk around, looking for a car with an empty seat, and that is how she ended up sitting with some single dad. At this point in the story, Chooch and I raced over to look at the picture on the screen and then promptly lost our shit all the fuck over again. Even Henry mosied on over to take a gander at the photographical evidence of Laura’s misfortune.

The kid running the photo booth was kind of fake-laughing along with us, but it was clear he wasn’t sure what was so funny. Also unclear to him was whether or not he was going to make a sale on this one.

“Henry, PLEASE give me money to buy this!” I begged in my signature mouthful of laughs / Bobcat Goldthwaite voice. It’s Henry’s favorite part about me. Especially when it happens during sex.

“No!” he yelled. “I’m not paying $15 for that! That’s outrageous.”

“BUT IT’S WORTH IT TO ME!” I cried harder. I have got to stop leaving my wallet in the car when we go to amusement parks. This is bullshit.

And then something incredible happened! LAURA BOUGHT IT FOR ME! She didn’t seem too pleased about spending money on such an uncomfortable memory, but she did it anyway because she is a GOOD FRIEND. (Apparently, the OPPOSITE of what I am, according to Henry.)

The guy behind the photo counter was partially bemused, but mostly puzzled at this point, as Laura handed over her credit card with a sigh while Chooch and I flanked her in hysterical laughter. It’s like we’re drunk all of the time without actually consuming any alcohol. This is normal public behavior for us. Laughing so hard we need to lean on walls and people for support. Sometimes I lean on people I don’t even know because I can’t help myself, the laughter makes me walk on a slant, you guys.

When Laura handed me the photo, I blurted out, “You don’t have to get me a birthday present now!”

“I already did,” she sighed, with just a tinge of bitterness and regret.

Henry pointed out that Laura’s Temporary Husband also purchased one of the photos, which wound me up all over again. I wonder if it’s as funny to him?!!?

HAHAHAHAHA BUT THIS PICTURE, THOUGH! Baby Mama Laura! Oh shit, I have to pee — BRB.

I have been actually crying about it at work, it is THAT funny to me, but everyone here is like, “It is not that funny, if at all” and “You’re so mean to your friends.”  And Henry is like, “No really, it’s not that funny” and “I can’t figure out how you have any friends at all.”   But Chooch and me? WE HAVE FIGURATIVELY BURIED OURSELVES IN A GRAVE OF IDIOCY from all of the laughing we’ve been doing. Team Dickhead FTW!

These past two days at work, Barb has basically been searching her desk for her imaginary OUT TO LUNCH sign every time she sees me approaching  because she knows I’m going to just stand there and have uncontrollable giggles usurp my ability to speak like a regular human being. However, at least she can appreciate the fact that it’s more of the backstory surrounding the photo that has legitimately cracked my sanity. Everyone else is just looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.

Just today, I was walking to the trolley and I started laughing all over again, and I mean LAUGHING. So I called Henry and said, “You have to stay on the phone with me because I’m walking down the street and laughing uncontrollably.” (Which actually isn’t anything out of the ordinary in my neighborhood.)

“What are you laughing about—-” Henry started. And then, “Oh. Never mind.”

But it was too late. My laughter upchucked out of my mouth like a galloping horse and I had to pause in a doorway of a store because I almost peed my pants in the middle of the sidewalk. I AM OUT OF CONTROL. This is what happens to me at amusement parks! I turn into a hyper dickhead and then suffer from residual giddiness for days afterward and you know who suffers? Henry! My co-workers! YOU! THE INTERNET!

And then that motherfucker Henry waited until I was on the trolley to text me the picture, which caught me off guard and I had to cover my face with my hair and laugh at my reflection in the stupid trolley window and then I started crying and people were looking and some asshole probably wrote a blog post about ME, can you imagine.

It’s tradition for us to go to Kennywood on Father’s Day. I can’t remember how it started. I think Henry randomly heard someone say that it’s one of the least crowded days of the years (all those deadbeat dads don’t wanna leave their couch and beer cases, I guess?) so we went when Chooch was a baby and it was pretty awesome. But for an amusement park like Kennywood, even the supposed “least crowded day” is going to have some lines in which  to wait and count prison tattoos.

Unless you go during a rainstorm!

But we almost didn’t go. It was raining so terribly hard when we woke up on Sunday morning that I almost made the decision to not go (because it is ALWAYS my decision). But deep down, I had a really good feeling that it would turn out to be OK. One of the best Kennywood experiences of my life was back in the late 90s when my friend Lisa and I went on a day that called for thunderstorms — everyone thought we were nuts, but we sure showed THEM. (I think?)

It stopped raining for about two hours before we got to the park, so we were all smug on our drive out there. Of course, rain began to drop in torrents right when Chooch got off the first ride of the day….

 …which was promptly shut down as soon as the ride ended.

I wasn’t about to let the rain get us down, so I led Henry and Chooch toward rides that are under cover, like the Musik Express and the Exterminator, which is kind of like an indoor Crazy Mouse but a million times better and usually has a long wait time.

But once we walked inside the building that houses the Exterminator, we discovered that there were only about 10 people in line in front of us. Smugness reactivated! I have NEVER been able to get on the Exterminator that fast before ever! The downside is that it eliminated the opportunity to get the inherent need for humanity mocking out of my system. But another upside was that we didn’t have to stand in an endless queue under a roof amid sweating Yinzers for an hour – like being in Hell with a lid on and having to endure the otherworldly stench of rotten underpits and nicotine breath.

Speaking of nicotine, the rain took a long enough smoke break to enable Chooch and I to ride the Jack Rabbit — another 0 minute wait in line — but then it started up right after Laura arrived so we took shelter in the arcade, which was coincidentally the first time in my 33 years of visiting Kennywood to ever give a shit about the arcade.

It was still pouring — the kind of rainstorm that comes down so hard it actually hurts — so we figured that would be a good time to eat….under a roof.

“I just spent $30 on food and all I got was a lousy soft pretzel and my dirty kid’s germ-fingered leftovers. And also, this sick Tom Selleck ‘stache. So…priceless, I guess.”

Chooch kept going on and on about wanting to on “God’s Boat Ride,” which was what he was calling Noah’s Ark all day long, without a single pelvic thrust of irony given. It was still raining kookas and albinos by  the time we finished our lunch that rivaled the price of park admission, so for once I was on Team Chooch and agreed that we should run for our lives to the nearest Noah’s Ark post haste. We were halfway there when I finally bothered to notice that Henry wasn’t with us.

“He was still eating,” Laura said in a sad tone, like she couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t notice something so significant as my life partner mid-lunch. But clearly the rain was affecting her tone, because duh — of course I wouldn’t care to notice something like that. Hahahaha. Hahaha. Hahahahah, oh god.

(I have residual Kennywood giddiness and it is ALL I CAN DO NOT TO WRITE THIS ENTIRE THING IN CAPSLOCK OK OMG.)

Noah’s Ark ended up being one of the only rides we stood in line for all day long, I guess because it was still raining at that point and Noah’s Ark screams SHELTER to all of us wet fucks at Kennywood. God, I’m so good at sleuthing.

My favorite part of Noah’s Ark was when they completely changed it from its original glory and made it into one of the crappiest, pointless rides in the park. J/K. My actual favorite part was when I hid behind a corner and scared the hemorrhoided SHIT out of Henry, he was looking in  the opposite direction at the time, making him even more startled, which he will deny but I saw the way his eyes bulged out behind his dumb black-rimmed glasses. That motherfucker be scared.

The best part of Noah’s Ark is the bouncing floor that makes everyone involuntarily twerk, two-by-two. Suck on that, Noah.

Even Henry’s hemorrhoids be twerkin’.

Too bad Chooch isn’t still in CATHOLIC SCHOOL. Maybe they’d let him wear street clothes for a day if he told them he twerked on down in God’s Boat Ride. Until they wiki’d “twerk” and find 40 ways to connect it to the Devil.

There was an old man in our group who only had a stump for a right hand and I prayed a little right there in God’s Floating Church that Chooch wouldn’t notice.

(He thankfully did not notice.)

(I really wish that guy would have been creative with his stump. If you’re not going to strap a bayonette on it, at least draw it a fucking Sharpie face, for Christ’s sake.)

(Christ’s face?)

And then I got REALLY giddy, you guys. We decided to go on the Racer….

OK, I know this going to be really hard to understand, but the Racer is a RACING rollercoaster with TWO TRAINS that RACE EACH OTHER OMG.

Chooch and I ran to the backseat of the red one, and Laura, fearing the outcome of being our opponent, opted to sit in the same train as us. She’s smart.

Henry, however, chose to sit ALONE in the blue train, which made Chooch and me die with evil laughter. You would have thought this was the funniest thing ever, the motherfucking Kings of Comedy tour on the goddamn Racer at Kennywood, with the extent of our Level 10 belly laughs. Everyone around us had undulating “STFU” thought bubbles above their rain-frizzed heads. Henry kept turning around to glare at us.

Then one of the guys working the ride made the mistake of getting on his microphone thingie to ask everyone if they were having fun, and of course Chooch and I were the only motherfuckers who responded obnoxiously.

RIDING ALONE AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Oh shit, we heckled the motherfuck out of Henry the entire way up the inaugural hill. It was the FUNNIEST THING IN THE WORLD to Chooch and me, you guys. HENRY! RIDING ALONE! ON FATHER’S DAY!

DON’T STAND UP, MOTHERFUCKERS.

From the very first hill and on, I proceeded to fake-scream as obnoxiously and blood-curdling as possible.

“My God! You sound like you’re being murdered!” Laura shouted over her shoulder, which of course made me channel my inner Janet Leigh/Jamie Lee Curtis Scream Queen until even the people on the other train were looking around for the source of the nails on chalkboard. Most notably was the older man in the backseat of the blue train. He was riding with his young granddaughter and straight up SCOWLED AT ME when our train whizzed by at the very end, bringing us to sweet, sexy victory.

“YEAH! WE WON! YOU’RE ALL LOSERS!!!” Chooch shouted across me at the assholes on the blue train. We continued our asshole parade all the way off the ride until we met up with Henry near the exit for his side.

“WE EVEN BEAT YOU OFF OF THE RIDE!!!” I screamed, laughing so hard I had to squat to keep from peeing. (This is my signature move. I perform it at work at least thrice weekly. However, I’ve already met my quota today alone.)

Loser Train.

Henry acting like he doesn’t care that he lost, because with family like me and Chooch, he’s clearly a winner.

Walking backward to mock Henry some more.

Then I came across the old man who was scowling at me and realized it was the librarian from my high school and I totally fucking lost it. Oh my god, I was laughing so hard that my breath was caught in my throat. I was such a pain in that man’s ass when I was a teenager, so it was only fitting that I put a aural blemish on three minutes of his Father’s Day all these years later.

Then we rode the Jack Rabbit, another wooden coaster, on which I proceeded to scream like an elderly lady from the 1920’s getting a sexual tickle from a feather.

Henry, as much as it must have pained him, actually cracked a smile during that one, though, if you can try to imagine.