The Bar For Failure Is Very High

This occurred over twenty years ago when my sister and I were both very young. We were at a popular theme park for families with our parents. We went on to a particular ride that raised you up high and then dropped you several times.

While I’m sure the safety measurements were eventually upgraded, at the time, the only thing keeping you in the ride was a single long bar that lay across everyone’s lap. Naturally, my parents’ adult thighs were larger than my skinny four-year-old ones, so there was quite some space between me and the bar.

The problem became obvious when we experienced the first drop and I easily slipped out of my seat to hover about two feet above the falling car. My dad reached up and pushed me back down into the seat just before the ride came to a sudden stop. While the car rose slightly in preparation for another fall, my parents scooched together to pin me between them. During the next fall, my older sister slipped out now that my dad wasn’t pinning her in with his weight. She made it even higher than me, and my dad had to grab her by the ankle and pull her back into her seat. She spent the rest of the ride hugging the lap bar so that she wouldn’t fly out again.