The sunscreen, the towel, the pink eye medication: you’ve rounded up the bare essentials. You’re strangely unconcerned about swimming in water that’s been backwashed through thousands of people’s pores, taints, and b-holes—heck, you’re even a little giddy to pop that leg with the not-fully-healed jellyfish wound in that lagoon of diluted pee-water the park refers to as the Kids’ Fun Zone. All that matter is that you get to cool off for the afternoon; all those popped-out tits from attention whores only loosely knotting their bikinis on waterslides are just gravy on top at this point.
However, what people overlook is that a water park functions like a rats’ nest. Namely, it’s a playground of filth and garbage that attracts, well, more filth and garbage. If good, hardworking people are the salt of the earth then these families with their litters of rats with no sense of shame or decency perpetually flocking to these waterslides and wave pools are the pepper. No need to search for these creatures; they’ll make themselves all too apparent on their own.
The Incredibly Hairy: When viewed at a distance sans shirt, they cast the allusion of wearing a loosely woven turtleneck. Close-up though they’re merely old Italians and Jews with bits of gold and tattoos trying to free themselves from perpetual entrapment in that scruffy thicket. Curiosity is one thing, but get too cozy with one of these guys and you might just find yourself with a shedder. Share a tube and you’ll end up with locks and tufts of greasy curls that are like syrup drips—once they’re stuck on your skin it’s near impossible to get them off.
The Horrible Children: These are the little, baby rats, dropped of by parental rats who are fine with letting them be the water park’s problem for the day. They’re the type who scream, fart, and lick their finger and touch you to the point you’re so uncomfortable that you just let them cut in line. They’re the kids who were never taught manners or embarrassment. Obnoxiously, they’ll scamper around you on the pool deck and you’ll begin to completely understand and rationalize people hitting their kids. Of course there’s never consequence; the only people working at the park are making $7.80/hour and couldn’t give two poops about what happens.
The Morbidly Obese: Whale watching has never been so easy. For some reason, the obese seem to think they are hiding their ever-abundant rolls by wearing t-shirts in the pool. Hey, Paunch De Leon, you’re already at the water park; everyone’s already picturing that nasty muffin top in which you’ve poured so much initial batter into that its corrupted all other muffins in the pan with its girth. With every one of their lumbering maneuvers these butterballs test the structural integrity of tubes, a chaise lounges, or entire waterslides. The obese are gross to look at. They’re gross to be around. But it is insanely amusing to witness an entire squad of lifeguards attempt to pull a 350-pound pre-corpse who forgot he couldn’t swim out of the pool.
The Painfully White Trash Couple: This is their second, or third, or fourth honeymoon and they’ve no doubt re-consummated their marriage behind a waterfall in the lazy river, or the deep end of the wave pool, or, at the very least, in the parking lot bushes. They’re the type of couple who immediately after meeting you inform you that he has Dale Earnhardt’s #3 tattooed on his penis and that she lost her virginity to a guy who kind of looked like Garth Brooks. They freely rattle off these tidbits, as they’re the most notable traits about them. True, they are the most intriguing of the cast of rats to find here, but you can’t shake the feeling you might contract hepatitis by making eye contact with them for too long. Invariably, they’ll leave the park a little early so they can polish off a case of High Life and a tin of Skoal in the Sizzler parking lot before the dinner rush.
Justin Gawel is an adult baby from Michigan. Look for his updates at www.justingawel.com or follow him @justingawel on Twitter.
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