It's Show Time

As a kid, I loved going to the show, and I particularly loved the scary rides.  Except when I was about five and my older sister took me on the dodgem cars, and I was terrified out of my wits.  Funnily enough, when I was twelve and my sister nineteen, she took to me to Luna Park and I insisted on the Big Dipper; I had a ball and it was my sister terrified this time, if her screams were any indication.

Now that I'm older, I'm not entirely sure about the scary rides.  My town had the annual show on the weekend, and we attended en famille, and did the en famille things such as the Laughing Clowns, and the temporary tattoos (my left upper arm is sporting the Rolling Stones lips and tongue logo!).  There was a particularly frightful looking ride called Speed.  It has a long arm with spinning chairs and it swings about fifty metres into the air, and the chairs spin.  My thirteen year old went on with his father.  My son enjoyed it, but at the end his father looked like he needed smelling salts and a good slug of brandy.  I didn't wish to go on this ride, but the freak out looked fun; it's like the Speed, but just on a smaller scale.  The seats are hard to get into, and designed like a saddle so there is a raised section between your thighs.  Somehow I got in, and the attendant fixed the safety bar across the laps of me, and my thirteen year old.  As I endured the ride, I hung on for dear life and wished it to be over.  I am no longer a devil-may-care twelve year old.  I am a middle aged fraidy-cat.  I am also a gauche and clumsy fraidy-cat.  When the torture was over, and the bars moved from our laps, my son was able to hoist himself from the saddle-like seat with the grace of a seasoned gymnast.  I sat there wondering how in the blue fuck I was going to extricate myself from the seat.  There wasn't room to swing my legs over the raised section.  If I tried to hoist my freight over the raised section, I would run the risk of shall we say a very nasty surprise (before landing in a pained heap on the floor like a charley-horsed Wile E Coyote).  There was nothing to put my feet on for purchase to enable me to lever myself out of the chair.  I sat there looking like a helpless Disney character, all big eyes and an anguished expression, and said to my son, 'Oh, crap!  Mum's stuck!'  Presently, a young attendant saw my shocking plight, and came over and bodily lifted me out.  Now here is the dilemma.  Should I consider this to be incredibly embarrassing, particularly when my son face-palmed at the sight of his mother being lifted from the dangling chair, or should I actually savour the fact that this is probably the only time I will ever be picked up and swept of my feet by a twenty-something ever again?