The Perils of Centrifugal Force

One day several of us single parents decided to visit the Great Adventure amusement park without our children. We thought it would be fun to be able to ride all the rides ourselves, something we'd never been able to do when we'd taken our children before. About twenty people ended up meeting at the park gate, where we then split up into either couples or small groups. I ended up making the ride rounds with a guy who was a total stranger to me, the friend of a friend. He was a pleasant man and I enjoyed his company, though I don't remember his name now.

It was a spring day, and I'd worn a short flippy skirt with a long-sleeved turtle-necked knit top. Since it was still somewhat cool, I wore panty hose, sheer-to-the-waist ones. As many women do, I decided not to wear any underpants because they sometimes pinch under pantyhose. Nobody would ever know anyway.

Well, we made our way into the amusement park, riding everything that caught our fancy: a carousel, those swings that are suspended by 50-foot chains and end up nearly parallel to the ground as they spin around. We rode a revolving cup and saucer ride, the roller coaster, went in the tunnel of love, and were merciless in the bumper cars. We stopped to get something to drink.

Then we arrived at a fascinating ride I'd never seen before. It was a circular room with a roof, and the "riders" stood with their backs against the wall. The room began to spin slowly, picking up speed until centrifugal force took over and you were plastered against the wall. Then the fun: the floor suddenly dropped three feet with a loud bang. You spun a while longer in this floorless state and the ride ended with the gradual subsidence of speed and the reassertion of gravity that allowed you to slide down the wall to the floor quite gently.

I loved that ride.

I wanted to go on it again. My companion said that he didn't want to do that but he'd wait for me.

So I got back in line.

Almost immediately two young men got in line behind me. I could smell the beer fumes three feet away, and they were certainly happy. One of them carried a boom-box playing loud rock music. They danced and bopped in place, snapping their fingers, openly wondering what kind of ride they'd gotten in line for. One of them tapped me on the shoulder and asked about it. I told him it was a room that spun around and was a lot of fun.

"Cool!" was their favorite comment about everything.

Before too long we filed into the room, a total of about 25 people facing each other in a circle with our backs against the wall. And as before, the room began to spin. The young man to my right held the boom-box in his right hand next to his friend. They continued their drunken praises for this ride. It was the coolest ride ever invented.

When the floor dropped, everything changed.

At the sound of the loud bang as it dropped, I felt my breast grabbed by the young man as he flung out his arms in a frantic attempt to save himself. Simultaneously he whacked his friend on the other side in the chest with his boom-box in his other hand, loudly screaming, "OH JESUS GOD, HELP ME!" His friend was also yelling with pain from the boom-box blow to his chest.

I added my own loud objections, being gripped by a steel fist in such a tender place: "OW! Turn loose! Turn LOOSE!" He didn't even hear me, he was so terrified.

He held on harder as we whirled around, perfectly plastered to the wall and no floor beneath our feet, as I pulled at his hand and yelled at him to turn loose. Finally I managed to extricate my flesh from his grasp, though he still hung on to my knit top with a paralyzed grip.

He was shouting drunken pleas to God to save him the entire time, and my top was getting badly stretched.

Then the room began to slow, and gravity took hold again, gently but insistently. We all began to slide down toward the floor. He lost his remaining reason. Not only was he hanging onto my top and stretching it out straight in front, but now he also pulled up on it, trying not to slide down. I could no longer see anything because he had it pulled up in front of my face. As I was trying to hold it down so that my bra would not be exposed, to my horror I realized that my skirt was clinging to the wall and staying there as I slowly slid down, though that hadn't happened the first time.

I wasn't wearing any underpants.

I grabbed the hem of my skirt in front and pulled it down as he and I engaged in a determined tug-of-war about my top.

He held on until we reached the floor, with me struggling to stay covered.

Finally we were securely on the floor again. Coming to his senses, he suddenly released my top, and said, "Oh! Sorry, lady." The beer fumes were still very strong.

When I found my park companion, he said, "Jesus. What happened? You look like you've been in a fight." My hair was messed up, and my knit top was ruined, bulging and stretched.

"You don't know the half of it," I told him.