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CP Stories

(This tale outlines one afternoon/evening of the summer I spent working at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio. I got off work, walked to my dorm, and started writing everything down as it happened.)

*open notebook*

SO here I am on the very hot shuttle bus, packed to the gills. The shuttle bus is, in its purest form, a school bus painted a horrible blue-green and slapped with a Cedar Point logo. There are two of these monstrosities; one that runs from the men’s dorms to the Commons dorms, and one that runs from the Commons to town, where you can go to the mall, Wal-Mart, etc.) So every time I need something or if I’m bored on my day off, I have to first walk through the park, through the marina gate to the men’s dorms, sit and wait for the green monster, die in the sweltering heat, ride for 25 minutes to the Commons, wait for green monster #2, die again in the bus heat, ride another 15 minutes into town, then disembark. All this for a tube of toothpaste?

Suddenly the death trap lurches forward and we’re off. Having my legs folded and propped up on the seat on front of me has made my legs sweat a lot. It is however my my go-to comfiest school bus position. I patented it back in ‘98 during my first season of school bus riding. A close second favorite position was sitting on the floor backwards, playing with my Beanie Babies on the seat.

Soon enough we pull into the Commons parking lot. I thank the purple-uniformed Jamaican boy who lets me off in front of him. I also thank the bald, wrinkly, slow-talking bus driver whose name I’ve decided is Harry. I like old guys. Well most of them.

I step onto GM#2 and take my seat, third from the back on the right, and assume The Position. It makes my legs sweat but there really is no better position. There are two Mexican girls across from me, one of whom has obviously discovered the Hollister store at the Sandusky Mall. She has on Hollister sunglasses, shirt, denim shorts, belt, and flip flops. Hollister Overload, muchacha. I have only set foot in that store once, back home. If I hadn’t been sent running, choked by the overwhelming bro-cologne bomb I might have stayed long enough to see more than the one rack of $20 paper-thin tank tops that looked like they’d crumble if I looked at them wrong. It’s not that I don’t like their clothes, some of them are cute, it’s just that I can’t stomach paying that much for something that will a) wear out very quickly and b) put out the message that I want people to think I’m cool for wearing this brand. That’s all you’re paying for is the damn logo. Get me a plain white tee and I’ll paint a frickin bird on it and sell it for $20. My other thing is.. If I do wear a name brand, I don’t wear everything from the store all at once so you don’t Overload.

Bus driver #2 has obviously decided to take us on the scenic route. It’s been 20 minutes and the mall is nowhere in sight. Not that I have anywhere to be, I don’t have a date with toothpaste or anything.

*later, back from Wal-Mart*

I take the first bite of my cheddar, honey mustard, and cocktail sauce sandwich. It’s less-than-delicious, but will do the job it’s intended of, which is of course to quash my insane hunger. These days I find myself eating a lot of “makeshift dinners”, partly because let’s face it I’m broke, but also because I get a small sense of excitement from inventing a new food, no matter how sad the food is. I decide next to quash my boredom and go outside. Suddenly remembering yesterday’s episode with the dollar-bill-rejecting vending machine, I tap into my “savings”, a very small piggy bank I fill with loose change. (It’s not actually a pig it’s a plastic cylinder with a slot at the top and a dollar bill decal wrapped around the outside. I stole it from my older sister who had won it in one of those middle school fundraiser contest things.) Success, I find four quarters. So I gather up my makeshift dinner, the quarters, my phone, and this notebook, and head down the sketchy metal staircase to the “lounge”. I put this in quotes because our “lounge” is really 3 picnic tables under a rickety pavilion that is probably older than both my parents combined, flanked by a water fountain and two poorly-working microwaves. Luxurious right?

While carefully walking down the aforementioned stairs, my dinner already devoured, I come across a foreign couple just casually chatting on the bottom step. As I approach them, I can tell they come from somewhere in Eastern Europe. Let’s say Czechoslovakia since it’s fun to say! (Is that even a country anymore?) Their chatter continues and they simultaneously turn their heads to look up at me. The girl gives me the ol’ elevator eyes, seemingly glancing a bit too long at the length of my pink shorts. The guy’s eyes pan down, obviously noting my bare feet. He meets and returns the girl’s look of mild disgust. I cheerfully greet them and breeze past, careful not to tread on the oil stain on the concrete that always reminded me of a pair of lungs. Once they are almost out of earshot, I let out a chuckle. People, it’s 95 degrees out and after this summer I’m 99% sure I’ll never see any of you again, not that I’d care anyway.

Suddenly noticing all three picnic tables are occupied by Skype-ing foreigners, I opt to set up shop in the grass under one of the two trees. I sit with my back against the trunk, notebook in my lap and toss my phone into the grass under my knees. 

It’s the summer before I start college and I have recently been inspired by the completion of my recommended reading. It’s the first book I’ve read of my own (suggested) will since I don’t know when. (It was recommended not required, give me at least half credit here!) I used to read A LOT as a kid but the older I get I’m finding it more and more difficult to sit and focus on one thing for too long. Oh! Here comes the mutually disgusted Czech couple! See there I go, I get distracted that quickly.

Anyway, I was talking about inspiration. I tend to become inspired by many things over the course of a day, if I allow myself to be open to inspiration. Sometimes I ignore it, sometimes I try to channel it into writing something worthwhile, sometimes I honestly don’t know what to do with it and I spend so much time trying to decide what to do that by the time I make a decision, I’ve lost the inspiration. RIght now it seems to be working for me.

Before I go any further, let me introduce myself. Hi I’m Katie. I’m 16 weeks shy of 19, 2 weeks shy of starting college, and 10 days shy of quitting my job here at Cedar Point. I don’t actually work in the park, I work at a restaurant on the beach as a food runner. Nope, not a server, just a runner. I spend between 4 and 8 hours per shift, 4 or 5 days a week running hot, heavy plates of gross food to ungrateful customers. And also performing other various tasks for other employees. If we were an honest society, my job title would be “Everyone Else’s Bitch”. But I don’t like to complain, It’s alright I guess. I mean I have no frame of reference as this is my first job, but the daily tips I get are great, and sometimes the customers are friendly? And if not, I steal fries from their plates before I bring ‘em out. Once I even took a quick dip into a guy’s BBQ sauce too. Sometimes if they are blatantly rude it gives me material for humorous Facebook posts later on. I’ll spend my shift thinking of how to word it then post when I get back to my dorm. With all the weird shit I observe on the daily, I’ve managed to become pretty damn good at turning the unfortunate into something laughable, even if just to myself. Although judging by the number of likes I get on some of my posts by the next morning I can assume they’re laughable to others too.

Suddenly my phone chimes with the reception of a new text. It’s from Chad, a decidedly very lonely blond kid from high school. “Hey ;)” I quickly reply, “Don’t bug me now.” Truth is, I’ve been struck by inspiration and I don’t want to lose it this time. That quickly goes out the window when a different pair of assumingly Eastern European girls sit down at the picnic table nearest me and begin to chat loudly in their language over a delicious-looking triple chocolate muffin and hot tea. Feeling defeated, I retrieve my phone and try to connect to the terrible wifi. Meanwhile I get another text  from Chad. “Why?” I reply, “Inspiration struck and I’m rolling with it.” knowing him and his probably lack of understanding of the creative mind, he’ll probably reply with something along the lines of “Wtf?”. We’ll have to wait & see.

While waiting, I grab up my quarters and slink over to the vending machine to get a Brisk. I remembered that, based on my extensive personal research, it’s the perfect complement to pretzel sticks, and it just so happens I have a bag of the things up in my dorm. I leave my things in the grass, and head back up, over the lung-oil stain and up the metal stairs to the sweltering hallway to room 172. The room is about ¼ the size of my bedroom at home, with dirty cracked wooden floors of extremely pale blue and an equally dirty window. It came equipped with steel bunk beds with a blue plastic-covered mattress, two mismatched 4-drawer dressers, and a yellow side table with a squeaky drawer, a lamp, and an armless, high-back wooden chair. I feel the need to note that the little lamp is about 3x brighter than the actual light on the ceiling. With my addition of mini-fridge and pink bedding it seems a bit more livable. I grab my pretzels and head back out to my tree. When I get there, I find that the muffin-sharers are still there only now across from them sits another pair of girls who are staring intently at a laptop screen, the bright light illuminating their confused faces in the darkening dusk. The muffin gals say words in their language that have a tone similar to a goodbye salutation. My guess was correct as they soon gather up their tea mugs and and rise from the table. After a bit more chatter they lean in and kiss on the lips. Interesting. 

Dusk has become night, the sunlight is now completely gone. I decide to use the light of my phone to write a bit more before heading up to sleep on my oh-so-cozy PlastiMattress™. OH! I remember to check on my Chad-versation. His reply: “Umm okay…” Ha. Toldja.

Trying to gather my next thoughts, I end up zoning out on the pop machine behind the confused laptop couple. The guy must think I’m staring at him because he looked up at me, equally as confused at me as with the laptop. Oops. I’m supposed to be invisibly people-watching. I’ve been had.

*a bit later* 

It’s still the same night, only now I’ve put on sweatpants and moved my writing sesh inside decay pavilion. My phone died while I was surfing the world wide web. The area is now inhabited by 12 other people, now 14, and approximately 6 billion little sweat flies. They seem to really like my feet. I gotta get out of here, time for bed.