Find your carnival ride

As summer prepares to morph into fall, this thought has recently crossed my mind: Carnivals, fairs, and amusement parks are some of the more interesting and enigmatic curiosities devised by the human brain.

I mean, think about this for a minute.

What do we do? We go through the grueling process of loading up young kids with all their various accouterments for the 30 to 40-minute trip to the fairgrounds on a steamy August day. Then, we brave excruciating lines, crazy cutbacks, stomach-churning dips and valleys, wade through the pickpockets and hawkers, and navigate a crushing, sweating, sea of humanity with its nauseating array of organic odors.

And that’s just in the parking lot.

We bravely persevere through these obstacles mostly for one thing: the carnival ride.

That’s right. The reward for our sacrifice is that we happily pay some exorbitant price to stand in line for roughly the same amount of time that Otzi the Iceman freeze-dried in the Italian Alps so that we can climb aboard a concoction of rusty tubing and faded plastic that is operated by a guy who is the proud owner of a greasy mullet and approximately five teeth. Any concern for the bodily welfare of ourselves or our children somehow is wiped clean as we enter the midway, as if by a Jedi mind trick.

Then, we allow our God-given earthly temples to be flung to and fro, up and down, and side to side. C’mon!  Let’s go again!

Why do we do this??

I’m no psychiatrist, but I suspect that it’s because we all, at some point in our lives, need to feel slightly, if not completely, out of control. Some people — like stunt men and women, daredevils, kindergarten teachers, astronauts, and the like — take this to the extremes, but for most of us, a carnival ride every once in a while does the trick. For just a few minutes, perhaps just once a year, we get to soar on swings, spin upside down, and ride a rickety track at breakneck speeds with nothing but our faith in the Good Lord and a bunch of Phillips head screws and metal piping. It’s an exhilaration that is largely absent in everyday life.

Or is it?

Ever changed the diaper of a boy baby who recently polished off a 12-ounce bottle of formula? (Gotta be fast.) Or, watched as your 6-year-old dribbles the soccer ball toward the goal with only the goalie in between while a mob of red-faced parents scream bloody murder from either side of the field? Or stood by as a loved one breathes his last breath and passes into the next life? Or shared a belly laugh with your wife as you send silly or downright dirty emails to each other during the middle of the work day?

The carnival rides are there. You just gotta spot them, climb aboard, and hold on.

And you don’t even have to stand in line…