Mia and the Big, Bad Rollercoaster

“My name is Mia, too.”
Kim and I slowly turned around and came almost face-to-face with a thirtysomething, prematurely balding male. Two feet below him, the wispy brownish-blond hair of a five-year-old girl blew in the cool evening wind.
Her gaze fixed on us. Had she misunderstood something overheard from our conversation?
“Oh,” Kim said, confused. “Mia. That’s a pretty name.”
“I like ice cream cones and rainbows,” Mia said back, smiling.
I leaned against the metal railings snaking the line of thousands through a dark maze. It was 9 p.m., and Cedar Point, the Sandusky, Ohio, amusement park famous for its mind-numbing roller coasters, would be closing in an hour. Kim and I had waited in line for almost two, and we were finally nearing the front of one of the scariest coasters in the park: Millennium Force.
“So she likes roller coasters?” Kim asked Mia’s dad.
“She loves them,” he said, incredulous. “Her mother and little sister are waiting outside the entrance.”
“So, you’re a big sister,” I ventured. “Me too. How old’s your sister?”
“Well,” Mia said, placing finger to lip in a too-old pensive gaze. “She’ll be one in November; right now, she’s zero.”
The line crept forward, and ten minutes later we reached the pre-boarding area, which separates guests into twenty or so rows of two. Kim and I chose a row in the middle, in front of two teenage boys. With all the rows filled, Mia and her father would have to wait for the next coaster car. We prepared to say our goodbyes.
“Hey, man, let the little girl go,” one of the teens’ friends said from further back. “Then you can ride with us.”
The two boys nodded, and let Mia and her father pass. When her row’s gate opened, the excited kindergartener stepped into the car, tightened her seat belt and muscled her lap bar like an old pro.
“I love roller coasters,” she said. “How fast are we going to go?”
“Very fast,” Kim said, indulging the child. “All the coasters go faster later in the day, with the tracks so warmed up.”
And with sudden, unannounced jolt, Kim and I and our new friends began our 310 foot ascent to the peak of the coaster. Climbing at a 45 degree angle at 9:15 p.m., the midnight blue sky seemed omnipresent. It was memorizing – so much so that it took us a moment to realize we had stopped about three-fourths of the way up.
Then the panic responses kicked in. Immediately. I had trouble focusing on Kim’s shaking left leg. My heart went into rapid palpitations and an invisible noose tightened around my neck. I tried swallowing. I turned around and saw Mia’s dad, directly behind me, sweat beading down his wrinkled forehead.
“What’s going on?” Mia asked, oblivious, smiling up at the sky. “I want to go fast!”
“We just stopped for a minute,” Kim said, staring straight ahead into the dark, her voice quivering. “They did this the last time I rode this coaster,” she added, a blatant lie.
We looked at each other, fake smiles dissolving as onlookers’ bodies on the ground became blurs behind my budding tears. I took a deep breath.
Was that Mom just 400 feet below?
“Kim, do you have your cell phone?”
“No,” she said, thinking, too, of Mom.
“I’ve got one,” Mia’s dad chimed in. “Here.”
Kim dialed; no answer. A buzzing hum reached our ears, undoubtedly the sound of a speculating crowd.
After what seemed like an hour, the skeleton of the coaster began to shake. I turned around, certain we would fall back and meet certain death – at a fun park, no less.
Instead, I saw a cable car inching its way up a secondary track, carrying a coaster attendant.
“Is she going to save us?” someone in the seat ahead of us whispered hopefully.
“Not sure,” I automatically answered, my voice still quivering.
“What’s going on?” voices sang in chorus as the cable car mounted the incline. The park employee on board hushed them.
Finally, once at the middle of the coaster’s car, she stopped.
“Someone unbuckled their seatbelt,” the attendant explained. “We had to stop the ride until it was fastened.”
“Are you serious?” I said aloud, but the woman was already on her way back down.
Back down was looking quite desirable at this point. But it wasn’t an option.
The seatbelt story wasn’t plausible – was it? Could something worse have happened – a mechanical problem that this woman knew of, perhaps, but didn’t want to tell us for fear of causing mass panic several hundred feet up in the air?
I sat back in my seat and, blinking, focused straight ahead. All I could see was black – black sky, black water, just black. I had heard it speculated that white was the last hue people saw before dying, and decided that, maybe, my chances of surviving the ordeal were good.
Kim and I looked back down. Did Mom have any idea?
Without warning, the coaster jerked back into action. A collective gasp from the riders was heard as we were quickly hoisted up to the top of the first hill, overlooking an 80 degree angle of descent.
I could have sworn we fell much faster than we should have.
But we didn’t jump the tracks, and the ride continued on, over steep drops, around tight curves, through dark caves and back out into an equally dark night, reaching purported speeds of approximately 93 miles per hour.
Those two minutes and 22 seconds in motion were, simultaneously, the slowest and fastest of my life. It’s difficult to explain.
Around the final, 90-degree curve that circled those still waiting in line, I felt like members of the Jamaican bobsled team in the1993 movie “Cool Runnings.” The roar of the crowd was deafening. We had survived, and the moment was anything but melodramatic.
When we came to a stop, the ride attendants informed us that, for our trouble, they would allow us all a free ride – all we had to do was remain in our seats.
We politely – OK, not so politely – declined.
When we reunited with Mom outside the coaster’s gate, she said she knew we were on that particular ride-through. Chalk it up to mother’s intuition. She might have been shaking as much as us.
Outside the park, on the way back to the hotel, I resolved to never again ride a roller coaster. At the ripe old age of 23, I was swearing them off. It’s not worth it, I concluded. Not worth the stress, not worth risking my life. After all, I’m not invincible.
On second thought, let’s just see what the summer brings.

The Break-Up

Which is more difficult -- breaking up with a boy, or breaking up with a boss?

Take a minute. I assume most of us have done both.

Now, get your mind out of the gutter; I'm not talking about ending a romantic relationship with a boss. I'm talking about sitting down with him, telling him it's over and then having to deal with his passive-aggressive behavior for the remaining two weeks of your employment.

In the several stepping stones of my short career, I've had the privilege of experiencing this series of events several times.

Here's how I see it -- and why I will break up with a boy 1,439 times before I bite the bullet and break up with a boss.

Breaking up with a boy:
1. You tell him it's over
2. He asks why
3. You give him a canned response (sometimes, telling the truth doesn't benefit anyone)
4. (drum roll, please...) You likely never have to see him again!!!

Breaking up with a boss:
1. You tell him you're resigning
2. He asks why
3. You give him a canned response (sometimes, telling the truth doesn't benefit anyone)
4. He presses you for more reasons
5. You make something up
6. He asks you at what point you became unhappy
7. You tell him it's been a while
8. He begs you to stay
9. You decline
10. He asks how he can improve the position to keep you
11. You say that's not possible and not the point
12. He won't accept your resignation until you sleep on your decision
13. You tell him you've been thoughtfully considering the pros and cons for the last week, and are confident in your decision
14. Repeat No. 8
15. Repeat No. 9
16. Repeat No. 12
17. Repeat No. 13
18. He tells you he won't proceed with the process until you've thought more about your decision
19. You concede, just to be able to move on with your day
20. You spend your final two weeks experiencing his progression through the stages of grief