Tuesday, August 24, 2010

When I Broke My Foot at the Happiest Place on Earth (No Not Disney World)... Okay the 2nd Happiest Place on Earth...

I’ve decided that after yesterday’s post this week will be all about hospitals. Won’t that be fun? Trust me I won’t write about the one time I almost could have maybe died Sophomore year of college because I had Meningitis (viral not the killer bacteria) and the school clinic I went to on Saturday morning told me I had the flu when really I could have been dying with Meningitis (because no one knew that I didn’t have the killer bacterial kind.) Then when I almost (maybe sorta) died Saturday night I had to make my Ex-Boyfriend (yeah the one with the snakes) take me to the hospital. Then four hours later when my parents arrived from San Antonio evidently my father took Ex-Boyfriend aside and was all, “Thank you for saving our daughters life. We are lucky she has you.” WFT!!! Ex-boyfriend told me that two weeks later and I only nodded but deep down I couldn’t believe he had taken this complement from my sweet, trusting father when he did nothing but drive me .3 miles to the hospital after I called him to help me save my own life!!! See that story isn’t really funny, so I won’t go into it.

But the time I broke my foot at Shlitterbahn… hilarious!

First things first. For you reader who have never been or never heard of Schlitterbahn let me explain to you the awesomeness that is the “hottest, coolest time in Texas”. Schlitterbahn is a family owned water park in New Braunfels, Texas. It has on numerous occasions been voted the best family water park in this country. (Yeah, it’s that good.) The original side of the park, it has two sides now, uses only water pumped from the Comal River. The water is used, sans chemicals, then dumped back into the river. One of the greatest things about Schlitterbahn is when you buy an admissions ticket you can then bring in as many coolers and as much food as you want. This means that after five hours of water slides, wave pools, and water-coasters you don’t have to pay 12 dollars for a turkey leg. Oh, and central Texas has a large German community, hence Schlitterbahn or “slippery road”.

So pretty much in an area where the nearest beach is at least a four hour drive, Schlitterbahn is the greatest thing ever in the 100+ degree Texas summer heat. Davis Girl, Boy Roommate, Old AT Co-Worker, and I decided to go on a Monday to avoid some of the crazy lines and annoying families. It was a great day. We rode lots of rides and slid down lots of slides. At about 3, Davis Girl reminded us that she needed to go back to where we parked our cooler and re apply sunscreen because she is all white and transparent. At this point we were on the other side of the park and it would take us about 20 minutes or so to get back to Camp Cooler. I don’t think any of us wanted to go, but we all took one for the team and decided to walk back with Davis Girl. After all no one wants a friend with skin cancer. So we walked all of twenty steps until we get distracted by this…
Han’s Hideout.

This is pretty much the kiddy pirate ship ride of the park. It’s made to be climbed on by seven year olds, so of course we thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. There were different levels and platforms and each had buckets of water to dump on people and guns to shot water at people. Again, awesome. Then at the very top of the ship there were two slides, side by side, to race your friend to the bottom… you’re seven year old friend.

So, we get to the top and Davis Girl and Old AT Co-Worker pick a slide and race each other to the bottom. Once they are on their way, Boy Roommate and I step into place to take our turns. Now, everyone who has ever been to a water park knows that you have to wait for the employee at the top of the slide to give you okay to start your own wild ride to the bottom. I step up into “next rider position”, and immediately turn to the fifteen year old in the red tank top to give me the okay to slide. He looks me in the eye and… yes this happened… winks. Now I’m all hopped up on adrenalin, all excited to beat Boy Roommate down the slide, and I take this wink as, “Hey, Girl. Go ahead and slide down this awesome pirate ship water slide, and while you’re at it, beat this dude to your left. You can take him. Go for it.” So I go. Evidently I was suppose to take this wink as, “Hey, Girl. You’re a little hottie. I know you are probably at least five years older than me and some people might call you a statutory rapist, but I think you and me could have a little something, something going on. Oh, and you shouldn’t go down the slide yet.” So I’m going down the slide. I’m having the time of my life… well not so much. I mean it’s a cool slide and all, but it was designed for seven year olds. Anyways, 10 seconds later I round the last turn in the slide and BAM!!!! I run right into Old AT Co-Worker’s head. Actually my left foot runs right into Old AT Co-Workers head. Like this…

Now I was not expecting to slide into my friend’s noggin so my first thoughts and reactions were of complete shock and bewilderment. I mean I was having fun, sliding down the water slide, and then POW Old AT Co-Workers head. Something didn’t add up. Very quickly the lifeguard at the bottom of the pirate ship was all up in my personal space asking me why the heck I was running into the nice young man who was sliding before me. Honest to God the first thought that ran through my head was, “Wow I’m really fast. I totally beat Boy Roommate down the slide.” Then I hear shouting coming from the employee at the top of the ship, “Why did you go? I didn’t tell you to go!”

Davis Girl: “Wow Lemon Lady you can’t just go whenever you want to go.”

Boy Roommate: “Dude, cheating doesn’t count. You didn’t beat me.”

Old AT Co-Worker: “My head is fine, but really you should have waited till the guy said you could go.”

Lifeguard at the Bottom: “Ma’am you must wait to be signaled to ride our rides.”

Me: “The guy totally gave me the okay!!! We can go ask him.”

As I am finishing this last sentence I try to stand up.

Me: “OOOAAACCHHHH!!!!”

Then I looked down and saw this…

Yeah, in the 45 seconds we had all been arguing about whether I had the right away to slide down the pirate ship of death a golf ball sized lump had appeared on my foot and I couldn’t put any weight on it.

Lifeguard at the Bottom: “Oh, man. Do you think it’s broken?”

Me: “It hurts…”

Davis Girl: “We need to get you to first aid.”

Me: “What the F is under my skin???”

Boy Roommate then picks me up and carries me in his arms across the park to the first aid station with mothers giving me the evil eye and whispering to their children, “See that’s what happens to you when you don’t follow the rules.”

The people at the first aid station then force me to sign a paper saying I won’t sue their asses before they would give me an ice pack for my foot. Then they put me in a wheelchair and made me sit out in front of the park why everyone else in my party goes and fetched the coolers and cars. I sat there for almost thirty minutes why eighth graders talked about the “poor, pathetic girl in the wheelchair” and “Why would anyone in a wheelchair want to spend the day at a water park.” I hate kids.

After spending thirty minutes driving around looking for an open clinic in New Braunfels, we decided to just drive back home to Austin. We ended up in the same Emergency Room I had been to eight months prior when I had Meningitis. Except this time I really wasn’t dying so I got to wait four hours to see a doctor. Surprisingly, I was in a very good mode (and this was even before the doctor gave me Vicodin). This tragic accident had happened in the afternoon, so we had practically had a full day at Schlitterbahn, Davis Girl had came and went with food for herself so she wasn’t a crazy bitch (you know those people who can’t function without a high blood sugar level) and we got to have wheelchair races in the hospital hallways.

Then I found out my foot was broken, and it would remain broken for the rest of summer. FU Schlitterbahn and the evil German family that invented you.

3 comments:

  1. Dude, you can't blame the awesomeness of Schlitterbaun over your inability to know when someone is hitting on you, and when they're letting you know its safe to slide down a watery death trap.

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  2. wow, is it a tumor? "It's not a tuma" said in Schwarzenegger voice

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