The Scariest Thing at Silverwood

Riding a Roller Coaster of Shame

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Without further ado, today’s pocket.

The scariest thing at Silverwood is not the old wooden roller coaster, which knocks your head back so hard, you wonder if you might need to return to physical therapy. The scariest thing at Silverwood is not the questionable sound this ride makes, the creaking boards crying out for oil, causing you to wonder what safety regulations require, and who enforces those regulations in a park run entirely by retired folks and teenagers earning Idaho minimum wage. The scariest thing at Silverwood is not the Spin Cycle which throws people around like Ursula in The Little Mermaid, nor is it the Stunt Pilot which rockets people upside down at wildly insane speeds.

The scariest thing at Silverwood is the scale you are required to step on before riding the new water coaster.

In a park full of things intended to be scary, nothing frightens me more than the scale.

In my dark closet of scary things, there have been many scales.

Dan and I take Anna and Seabass to Silverwood every summer. (If you’re not from our neck of the woods, Silverwood is an old timey amusement park on the other side of the state line where you can still buy an ice cream for $3.)

This year, Silverwood added a new section of the park complete with a new water coaster which we were all eager to try.

Anna and Seabass had each both brought a friend to the park, and we stayed together for the first set of water slides but then lost each other by the wade pool. Dan and I waited for a long time for Seabass and his friend Gage to emerge from the pool only to eventually figure out that they had left long ago to go explore more rides. We found them coming off the water coaster.

“Do you want us to wait with you and go again?”  Seabass asked, wanting me to say no.

“Yes,” I said. I wanted us to explore the park together, and I wanted him to suck it up so that we could do that.

The water coaster had two slides, and one was broken. Seeing as it was a new ride, this might give some people pause, but we are not those people. When we went to choose a dog from animal rescue, they told us they only had one dog. “One is all we need,” I told Dan, and he agreed. When we got to the animal rescue, we learned that the one dog they had was only available for adoption because another family had taken her home and returned her. Again, this might give some people pause, but not us. We took her home anyway. We had driven all that way.

As we waited in the line, we made conversation which mostly went like this. “Wow, this line is really long.” Seabass.

“It was so much shorter when we came with our school. It’s because one of the slides is broken…That’s why it is taking such a long time.” Seabass again.

“I guess it makes sense for Gage and I to wait with you guys.”  Seabass’ impatient interjections were interrupted only by the booming robotic voice saying, “Welcome to Eagle Hunt. This ride must be ridden in pairs. All paired riders must have a combined weight above 150 pounds and below 400 pounds.”

This was a matter of physics. It was not meant to be fat shaming. The coaster is powered by jets that push riders uphill and then send riders downhill. The weight balance is important to make sure the ride functions properly. There was a scale at the bottom of the ride for people to check if they needed to, but the attendants weren’t making people step on it.

We had made it almost to the top of the stairs, where the entrance to the ride was located, when the robotic voice turned off, as did the water for the slide. Both slides were no longer operating, and there were two boys in the middle of one of the slides that appeared to be stuck.

“Should we just leave?” Seabass asked.

Several folks made this choice, but again, we are not those people. We had come all this way.

A new announcement came on telling us that they didn’t know when the ride would be in operation again, but we remained hopeful as did most of the people in line. We had a front row seat of the rescue. The ride attendant unzipped the ride like a tent and let one boy out at a time. “This happens sometimes,” she said. She also did not appear easily phased.

All in all, it took less than twenty minutes for the ride to resume operations. “Welcome to Eagle Hunt,” the robotic voice boomed once again. The crowd cheered.

I was elated we were moving again. We were close enough to the top that Seabass had accepted his fate. However, I soon realized there was another scale at the entrance to the ride, and the attendants were making everyone step on it.

“Maybe we should just leave,” I said to Seabass. I haven’t stepped on a scale in a long time. When I go to the doctor’s office, I face backwards and ask them to please not tell me what I weigh.

Seabass could sense my anxiety. “They don’t tell you what the scale says,” Seabass assured me. Inside my son is a well of empathy.

As I climbed the stairs, I remembered the other times in my life when the scale shamed me.

Mrs. Klein, my third-grade teacher, told us that one day she was going to surprise us and bring in a scale. We would get to figure out how much we weighed on the moon. I wanted to send Mrs. Klein to the moon. Instead, I was “sick” for most of third grade, thinking that was the best way to avoid public shaming.

In elementary school, they sent us to the nurse in groups of five. We had to stand on the mechanical beam scale, the kind where the nurse moved a heavy dial, if you hit 50, 100 pounds… the kind where all the other kids could hear the metal moving, and anyone with half a brain could tell if you weighed over 100 pounds. You weren’t supposed to weigh that much in fifth grade, but I did.

There were periods of my life where I made myself step on the scale every day, sometimes more than once a day. I used to get frustrated when I was weighed at my doctor’s office if it wasn’t first thing in the morning, or I wasn’t on an empty stomach. I always removed my shoes.

When I was pregnant with my kids, I had to step on the scale every week. One week, I gained six pounds, and the doctor told me I might want to change my diet. Instead, I changed my doctor. I gave birth to two babies, both of whom were over eight pounds, one who was almost nine. I had healthy pregnancies. I didn’t develop gestational diabetes, and my body returned to its post pregnancy shape, give or take. Come to think of it, my choosing a new doctor was one of the first steps in me choosing myself, in saying maybe I don’t need to be as small as you think, maybe I know more than you, even if you have a degree, maybe I know more about my body and what it needs.

Seabass was correct. The attendants weren’t reporting back what the scale said, but each rider had to step on the scale individually, and each paired team had to step on the scale together. Then, the attendant looked at one person, and said, “I’m going to have you ride in the back,” which anyone with half a brain knew was code for because you weigh more. It was the elementary school nurse’s office all over again. If I was riding the coaster with one of my kids, this wouldn’t be a problem, parents are supposed to weight more than their kids, but the kids were partnered up with their friends, and I thought it would be weird if I asked to swap partners. My partner was my husband, and I knew who would be riding in the back of our water coaster, and this embarrassed me. I wasn’t supposed to weigh more than my husband.

I hadn’t always weighed more than Dan. There was a time where I weighed less than him. I call those years, the hunger years, the years when I thought my eating disorder was something I had kicked in college and I carefully tracked my daily calorie intake on my phone, making sure I got enough exercise to earn the right to eat.

Those years are behind me. My attitude towards food and my body is healthier than it has ever been, but still, there is a scale that I must step on, in front of all these people, a scale which will measure and categorize me, a scale that will put me in my place, a scale that summons all the shame.

Growing up I didn’t see women who were big and beautiful. There were women who were big and awful, like Roseanne and Ursula, and there was a slew of women I wanted to be more like …Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Wynona Ryder, Ariel from The Little Mermaid, every single Disney Princess. The front boat riders are everywhere.

The call was also coming from inside the house. My parents have always been super supportive of me, but they were ingrained in a culture which admires size zero women, front boat riders, and that shit gets in your head. My parents are always on diets.

Dan stepped on the scale first, smiling at me the whole time. When it was my turn to step on the scale, I got on, pretending like it was no big deal.  An alarm went off, not a metaphorical alarm, but an actual siren.  “Sorry about that,” the attendant said, turning off the alarm and looking at me. “I’m going to have you ride in the back.”

Anna stepped on the scale and was also chosen to ride in the back, but she wasn’t phased. “Back buddies, all the way, Mama,” Anna bumped her fist to mine, smiling wide. I wasn’t in the dark closet anymore.

The water coaster was super fun. We didn’t get stuck, and I’m glad Dan and I were able to ride it together.

Anna’s kindness towards herself and towards me made me realize that while she has inherited much from me, she did not inherit my body shame.

I think one of the reasons for that is because so much has changed. Big and beautiful women are taking the stage.

Dan and I are now watching the third season of Derry Girls, and this week it occurred to me that the mom, one of the funniest and best characters in the show would definitely be a back boat rider when riding with her husband. In a most recent episode, she decides she wants to go back to school, and her husband looks at her and says, “There is nothing you can’t do.” I know that’s how Dan feels about me.

There are others…big, beautiful women, proud to ride in the back of the boat. Some have always been there, Mona Lisa, Cleopatra…more are evolving… Fortune Feimster…Rose Quartz in Rebecca Sugar’s Steven Universe would definitely ride in the back of the boat if she rode with Steven’s Dad, and everyone knows she’s a supreme babe.

I think another reason Anna didn’t inherit my body shame is that Dan and I worked really hard to show her something different, and by some magic of Steven Universe, it worked. She ditched the body shame script and decided who she wanted to be. Watching her do that with such love and care made me realize that I could do it too.  

Still, though, sometimes the wiring gets tripped, and something happens, like an alarm goes off when you’re forced to step on a scale in public, and for a minute you’re on the wrong ride, running the wrong script, and it’s scary.

It’s the scariest thing.

I would love to continue this conversation in the comments. What resonates for you? What is your scariest thing?