Nana Malone

For my birthday, dear hubby took me to Magic Mountain. I felt like a kid again. Rode every ride, screamed like a four year old on a sugar high – there were plenty of four year olds to measure against. We rode and rode and rode, sometimes we rode twice back to back. Hubby even won me a prize.

But somewhere between the watered down slushy lemonade, mounds of cotton candy (what exactly is cotton candy anyway), afore mentioned screaming four year olds, and happy adults yearning for a thread of their childhood, I noticed something was different than I remembered.

Not the nostalgia, not the excitement. But somewhere between childhood, puberty and the constraints of adulthood, a hierarchy had been imposed - the hierarchy that comes with money.

Gone are the days where everyone, Rockefeller or Oliver Twist, had to wait patiently in line for their turn. Now, like in the rest of life, money talks. With enough money and a handy dandy Flash Pass, you can bypass the lines by setting appointments for each ride. And even amongst the “moneyed” elite there are class distinctions. Those with a standard Flash Pass and those with a Gold Flash Pass, a sort of new money, old money class distinction. With a Standard, you could set your appointments but they were based on current wait times so if the current wait time is two hours, your appt will be two hours away. With a Gold Pass, you can set an appointment in the next five minutes.

As we bypassed each line, teeming with eager thrill seekers, I couldn’t help but dance as I waltzed by. After all, I was now in the special club. I wanted a Flash Pass for life. We rode several rides over and over again, picking and choosing which ones were the coolest.

But then I thought about it. Has the joy of amusement parks been ruined forever? Am I destined to be bored or worse, not want to go, if I can’t have a Flash Pass? Can a smattering of privilege make the normal and every day enjoyment seem somehow mundane and boring?

Would I have had fun without the Flash Pass? Sure. But would I have been exhausted and perhaps a little cranky after waiting in line for hours? Probably. But could I have enjoyed the rides more because of the value of time I spent waiting for them. Unfortunately, yes. I would have made sure to squeeze full enjoyment out of every single ride. Instead of my blaze attitude about which rides were best and worth going on again.

Would I get the Flash Pass again, hell yes. I’m not crazy. I know a good thing when I see it. But I do promise to feel a twinge of guilt at the socioeconomic implications.