Day Four: Six (Red) Flags Over Mid-America

Day Four

An off day. We had decided that somewhere in the middle of the trip, we'd all need to have a day to relax and stay as far away from the dinosaur truck as possible, and St. Louis seemed a good option given a) its location at almost exactly halfway for us; and b) the fact that I think it's a pretty kick-ass city. So, we let the kids sleep until after 10:00, take our time getting dressed, and head off to the southern suburb of Eureka to hit Six Flags Over Mid-America. I think it'll be good for all of us to blow a couple hundred dollars on roller coasters, LED bunny ears, and cardboard fried chicken. It is, but not in the way I expect. As usual.

On our way to the park, we stop and get some lunch at Bob Evans. If you haven't spent much time in the midwest, you wouldn't know that Bob Evans is a chain of bright red barn-like restaurants specializing in home cookin' that are based on the vast Ohio farm of—you guessed it—a guy named Bob Evans. They're ubiquitous from Missouri to Pennsylvania, and I was introduced to them on my first trip to southeast Ohio while interviewing for the graduate directing program at Ohio University. I provide this biographical information for the place for one particular and important reason: Bob Evans represents to me the Mecca of all things breakfasty-good. (And lunchy and dinnery, too, I guess.) The sausage gravy is one of the few food items on the planet for which I would probably trade my own children, or at least sacrifice an arm. It's that good. And I haven't been to a Bob Evans in YEARS. J has never been to one. The kids could give a shit—in fact, Liam is already complaining because we made the mistake of telling him that we were going someplace where he can play games (resulting in a 90-minute ongoing mantra of “I wannnn play gaaaaaames....I waaannnn play gaaaaaaaaaaames”). Alas, no amount of whining will deter me from introducing them to the joys of the red restaurant.

We arrive at the Bob Evans off I-44 somewhere around Kirkwood, get seated, and look over the menu. This, for me, is an illusory act since I know exactly what I'll be having: THE HOMESTEAD BREAKFAST (add chorus here). The Homestead Breakfast is a protein- and carbohydrate-lover's paradise—two eggs, three sausages, home fries, two biscuits, and a bowl of the aforementioned sausage gravy. I recall that I used to replace the home fries with mashed potatoes, so that's just what I do today. With a little country gravy on top, of course. Mmmmmm. J has some sort of “healthy breakfast” thing comprised of egg whites, a dry English muffin, and a fruit parfait. Liam, inexplicably, orders macaroni and cheese. Harper? The chocolate chip pancakes, of course. Duh.

Meanwhile, Liam is continuing—if not intensifying—his diatribe about “gaaaaaaammmmmes.” I know that he needs to eat something, or he'll be a miserable little demon all day and could spoil our great time at the amusement park. But I'm not worried. Even though he's never shown any preference whatsoever for mac n' cheese, there's plenty of other Bob Evansy goodness to get him satiated. Our food arrives. My God, it's as beautiful as I remembered. I'm basking in the glory of what must be well over 2,000 calories on my plates (that's right! PlateS!). J looks a little ambivalent...I ask why. She tells me that her egg whites appear to just be scrambled eggs and her dry muffin has butter on it. I suggest she send it back, but she can tell I don't mean it. She's sensitive to my elevation of Bob Evans to mythical status, and is nice enough to eat something she doesn't want so this particular myth remains intact. Harper dives in to her pancakes.

Then there's Leejers. When J offers him some mac n' cheese, he refuses. He looks at us like we've ordered him a bowl of strychnine. Says...no, whines, “I don't wwwwaaaaannnn any mac n' cheeeeeeese.” Also refuses the smiley-face fries that come with it. I remember his discovery of breakfast sausage from the other day, so I put one of mine on his plate. He eats...one bite. Meanwhile, his “gaaaaaaaaaaaammes” whining is increasing in its fervor, and my Bob Evans utopian vision is crumbling all around me. I have no choice. I begin threatening him.

R: Liam....

L: I don't waaaaaaaannn any mac n' cheeeeeeeeeeeese......

R: LIAM......

L: I don't waaaaaaaaaaana eeeeeeeeeeaaaaaat....

R: Liam. EAT.

L: No!

J, who knows just where this is heading, is looking down at her mis-made breakfast and trying hard to stay out of the fray.

R: Liam, if you don't eat you're not going to play any games.

L: I WAAAAAAAAAAAAANN play GAAAAAAAAAAAAMES!

R: I. Don't. Care.

L: Don't talk me.

R: WHAT?

L: Don't talk me, Daddy!

R: You want me to take you to the car? Eh?

L: No!

R: Then EAT!

L: No!

R: (to J) All right, that's it. I'm taking him to the car.

Trips to the car for Liam and I are opportunities to share an experience. They are very rare, but have in the past proven to achieve a desirable outcome: Liam's compliance. I lift him from the booth, and storm out to the car. I put him in his car seat, throw myself into the driver's seat, close the doors, and yell at him. Basically, I do this to scare him to death—which it does. I also do this, apparently, because I've been feeling too good about my parenting skills and need to do something FUCKING STUPID to bring myself down a few notches. This kind of thing really does the trick—shouting at a two year-old in a Mercury in a Bob Evans parking lot on a DAY OF FUN. Nice, dad. Very nice.

I succeed in intimidating him—such a tough guy, me—and we go back inside. Where he proceeds to astound me by refusing to eat again. By this time, my Homestead Breakfast is cold, my temper is hot, J has given up on the whole thing, and the whole plan seems to have fallen off the tracks. We're on the verge of deciding to head back to the hotel and forego the Six Flags endeavor altogether. But wait...we forgot our secret weapon:

Harper.

This whole time, she's been working on her pancakes and coloring her kid's menu and has hardly uttered a peep. When the chips are down, however, she seems to psychically summon her little brother to our side of the booth. He ducks down beneath the table and resurfaces a few moments later between Harper and me. His mood seems to have lightened during the journey. I'm beginning to catch on...so I offer him a bite of chocolate chip pancake (an item he'd refused prior to our car trip). He eagerly chomps down on it. Then another. Then a few more. Before two minutes have elapsed, he's eaten almost two entire chocolate chip pancakes! (Hardly a nutritional boon, I know, but gimme a break here—especially those of you who have children who will eat things like...vegetables.) We're back on track. And on our way to Six Flags, where some serious coaster action awaits me.

We spend an hour or so trying to orient ourselves to the amusement park, when it occurs to us that this is simply not possible. Six Flags St. Louis is the most randomly organized public space in which I have ever stood. Its map is virtually incomprehensible, its pathways lead in circles, its signage is nonsensical at best. However, it does have a nice feature: when staff members see you standing in the middle of the path looking like an idiot as you try and determine your location, they hurry up to you and ask if they can be of assistance. How nice! You say something like “we're trying to find the Bugs Bunny National Park,” and they cheerfully direct you to it. There are only two minor issues here. First, their directions are in keeping with the park's layout itself, so they are basically just audio versions of the incomprehensible map. Second, as J later pointed out, the staff members who rush to assist you may all be mildly retarded. So, once they're done with you you find yourself feeling more confused than ever, coupled with a strange sense of social guilt. And you're still no closer to the goddamn Bugs Bunny National Park.

Eventually, we more or less get the lay of the land. After a mind-boggling process of locating one of exactly two places in the entire park where one can get a beer (the park is a bizarre contradiction, as it's very anti-beer while ensconced in the home of Anheuser-Busch) we decide to beat the heat and head to the attached water park, Hurricane Harbor. We have a great time there, despite my having to save Harper's life when the double tube we're riding in pitch black down a waterslide capsizes and she ends up sliding, underneath me, on her face at 30 miles an hour. This is where my self-image as a father goes up a bit, because without thinking I grab her, clutch her to my chest, and reassure her all in less than two seconds while we continue to plummet through the darkness towards the receiving pool below. It turns out that our tube has become stuck crossways in the slide, and they have to shut down the entire attraction on our behalf. I don't give a crap, because I've convinced Harper that she's okay and that these things happen all the time. Later, I cry myself to sleep because I realize how close my little kid was to getting seriously injured—but I cannot afford this sort of breakdown at the time.

We spend the rest of the day at the park, gradually unlocking its secrets and enjoying our time together. One particularly bizarre occurrence takes place as we return to Calico's Chicken to get another beer and some of the previously-mentioned cardboard fried bird. J is asked by Daniela, the very cute, petite, and eastern European brunette who's tasked with pouring beers at the outside patio bar to provide her driver's license as Daniela needs to punch the license number into her computer to comply with park policy. Five minutes later, J realizes she returned sans license and goes back outside to retrieve it. Daniela claims not to have it. Meanwhile, Stephen, the guy working the food line inside, catches on and goes outside to try and locate J's license. He doesn't seem the least bit surprised that this would happen. Which seems very, very weird to us. When J had come back in after querying Daniela about the license, I looked through the window and noticed that Daniela had never actually looked for it. Not when J was there, and certainly not when she had come back inside. This strikes us as very odd—wouldn't you be looking frantically for a customer's driver's license if you were the last one to have it? It strikes us both simultaneously: Daniela is almost exactly J's twin. They're virtually the same size, the same hair color, same everything. Daniela is trying to kipe J's license! She's running some sort of illegal immigrant fake ID or human smuggling operation! She's in cahoots with the Albanians! She may even BE an Albanian! Holy crap! We're finding ourselves in the middle of an international incident right here at Calico's Chicken! We allow our conspiratorial minds to continue to ferment these notions until, unceremoniously, Daniela returns with the license. She apologizes and smiles (she's very cute...well, I told you she looks like my wife) and all is well. But you wanna know what? I had continued to look out the window at her, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that she never located that ID where she should've...not in the cash register or on the counter. She never made a MOVE in that direction. She had it on her, dude. And she made a wise decision in returning it, because I have a fantasy that I'm Liam Neeson in “Taken” and I would like nothing more than to get wrapped up in Daniela's web of intrigue. Take THAT, Daniela. And tell your Albanians I said so.

At 9:00, there's what they call the nightly “Glow in the Park” parade featuring characters from DC Comics and Looney Tunes, and J stays with the kids during this event while I capitalize on short lines in order to hit as many roller coasters as I can within the last hour of the park's operating hours for the day. Which I do. Full of cardboard chicken and Bud Light, I manage to hit five of the park's most intense thrill rides in less than 60 minutes—Ninja; Batman: The Ride; Evel Knievel: The Roller Coaster; Tony Hawk's Big Spin; and Mr. Freeze. By the time this whirlwind tour of vertigo is complete, I'm dizzy, nauseous, my legs are killing me, I'm sure I won't be able to move my neck from side to side in the morning, and I'm utterly exhausted. But I've got happy kids, who have purchased the LED bunny ears (for Harper) and sword (for Liam) during the parade. I've got a happy wife, who loves nothing more than to see all of her kids happy (myself included here). And I'm a happy dad, because Liam ate some goddamn chocolate chip pancakes and because I saved Harper's life and because despite the fact that my fears of heights and falling have intensified as I've gotten older, I'm still a sucker for speed and the coasters indulge me in this.

And maybe I drive home extra fast. And maybe I tell myself it's because I want to get back to the hotel before the kids fall asleep. But that's a lie.

I'm evading the Albanians.