Mark of the beast

Lately, my life has been governed by a frequent urge to pee. It's summertime and I am hot and thirsty. I also have not knocked my caffeine habit, but I keep it down to a cup. I gain water weight very quickly and all of the liquid has to go somewhere.

Trying to get to the water park was a highly irritable ordeal. I took BART from Fremont to MacArthur in Oakland to allay the construction-mess-induced traffic and high gas prices. I was supposed to get on the train at 9:10, but I reached Fremont at 9:30 (despite breaking every reckless driving law possible). Someone asked me for help buying tickets and I curtly told them I did not have time. I stood in the line with my slightly bent BART ticket from a few months ago and begged the lady in front of me to stop harassing the ticket agent (she was trying to get him to show her if all her old tickets worked), before realizing that I could just test my ticket in the reader, which worked better than the ticket machine. I am sure I was cursed by the people I refused to help in my obstinate bitchiness.

I inadvertently boarded onto a San Francisco Train, which left me in West Oakland for ten minutes while I huffily paced back and forth unable to stomach the homeless stench that followed me through my days in Berkeley*. The frustrating part was that I vacillated between missing Berkeley for ease of public transit and being grumpy about the BART sluggishness and crazy people. I finally made it over to MacArthur to meet my ride, which was not so easy since I just wanted to bite a fellow passenger's head off**.

When we got to the water park, I had to go again, so I changed and I found the "Gulls" bathroom. This is where I noticed that I had started my period. I quickly scrambled for some tampons and found one serendipitously sitting by the sink. The cardboard applicator was jammed, but I somehow used my engineering skills to force it up there. I continued the day knowing that my emotional roller coaster and weight gain were all hormonally induced.

The day started out rather slowly due to waiting, for rides, for the free lunch we were promised by UCSF/SFGH, and for my group of six people so we could assemble for the slides. Later in the day, things sped-up accordingly once the warm weather began to wane and the smaller children exited the park. Having a group meant that we could load up on the inflatable rafts for maximum momentum, thereby increasing the potential for falling off the waterslide, making the rides more terrifying and therefore more fun. Our favorite ride was the Tornado, where two to four people sit in a raft and get dropped off a steep incline into a large sized cone and then slide back and forth through the wet cone into a waterfall. The only caveat was that I sat on a two seater with Laura*** and her head moved to the side into my toe. The other ride that gave us the most fun was the Typhoon. My friend who rarely ever follows instructions**** tried to twist the raft over and instead ended up falling off INSIDE the tube and grabbing for dear life to the edge while another friend screamed "PROTECT YOUR BALLS, PROTECT YOUR BALLS!" He apparently had a traumatic experience on the same ride. My flip-over with Chris E^2 was a little bit more successful since we managed to pull in the same direction and I watched his body fly into the water at the same time my body did when we exited the tube.

Overall, my first foray into the land of water parks after a decade was a resounding success. We polished off our sun-drenched selves with a meal at the Pyramid Brewery in Walnut Creek. I had a Black Apricot Beertail and a buffalo sandwich. I also sampled some of the beer offerings in the restaurant, although my buzz indicated that I enjoyed the beer far too much. We mocked my friend's****** passionate dislike of onions by ordering onion strips and onion rings and putting it on his tab. And then I hopped on BART at Rockridge to wait for the next ride home. I did have to go again, despite going in the restaurant.

*At one point a homeless man sat next to me and smiled and proceeded to just sit there while his scent wafted in the air. I stood up rather abruptly, because unfortunately I was not feeling too well.
**Hi Cory.
***Friend of a friend of a friend's from 5th grade
****Hi again, Cory
*****Cory, it's almost like this entry is about you.