Noise in the Shape of Writing

Today, I bent the rules of parental truth telling somewhat. I swore up and down to my daughter that Colossus was a small coaster, Roaring Rapids only gets you a tiny bit wet, and that Ninja doesn't slice off your head in the middle of the night using a long, ceremonial blade forged from the steel of the demon-bred craftsmen.

She's a smart cookie, though, and we soon had a deal that I got to take her on a "Daddy ride" if she got to drag me onto Bugs & Daffy's Molasses-tacular Gentle-Motion Apparatus.

Thank goodnes there's no more Spinakin Corners anymore or I'd be knee-deep in birch carvings and personalized tea coseys.

Still, the upshot of the arrangement cost me more than a few dozen disparaging looks as I took my tear-soaked, livid-with-fear child onto three rides that only the day before we, as a family, had agreed to spare the kid from.

That was before I sold my soul for a future trip to Disneyland and an option on some sunburns and kiddie pool downtime at Hurricane Harbor next week. Still, I think the gambit paid off cause with each ride she proclaimed loudly, "That was the best ride I've ever been on!"

Colossus, while no Goliath or X, is still as imposing and big as ever. It can still shake the eye teeth out of a moderately well-put-together 37-year-old. It registered "scarier than Space Mountain," but "not as ping-pongy as 'X'."

Roaring Rapids -- which I flatly billed as "boring for 11 people and hella-fun for one lucky duck" -- proceeded to bear it's prophecy out as my daughter quickly became the beneficiary of some half dozen perfectly-timed liquid incidents. I came in a decent third of frouth in the crew of 12 and was still quite soaked. I am amazed my cellphone survived the trip.

Ninja (the third of the three rides that were part of the bargaining process) was quick to become "the greatest ride of all time." And I can't disagree really (though my heart lies with 'X') given it's compact quarters and series of "Mr. Frog Meets the Forest" close-calls.

In the end I was even able to coax her on to Revolution. After all, if daddy was right three times in a row, then he must be on to something. Sure enough, we rode that thing repeatedly (love those non-existent mid-week lines), and now even the dreaded "loop" is passe for my fearless progeny.

I think if we'd stayed a little longer I could have convinced her to ride "X" again. About a year ago, X became synonymous in our household with, oh, dentist drills and horrible, debilitating accidents. The only way I was able to even mention "Magic Mountain" was by promising no reprisals of "X".

So, all in all, a $23 online ticket is well worth the roving gangsters and stroke-inducing heat of the Valencia desert. Magic Mountain still has the best and most exciting coasters around that I know of. Ninjas everywhere are resting, assured that their name is not sullied.

And $9 hot dogs still taste the same as the $2 ones from the cart outside of Home Depot.