I’ll briefly recount a humiliating event that happened to me in 2018 at Universal Studios in Studio City. I should have avoided going there in the first place owing to a natural phobia of amusement parks, but for the sake of my twin daughters and wife, I decided to bite the bullet. It was a decision I will forever regret. The 2018 incarnation of the park reeked of Las Vegas money-grabbing, subpar overpriced restaurants, wannabe boat cruise entertainers donned in epaulets and moth-ball-smelling wool gaucherie who constantly massaged their handlebar mustaches and spoke in fake French accents. Worst of all, I stood in line for over an hour to go on the Harry Potter Forbidden Journey, a ride in which adults sit in undersized airplane seats and are pinned in by a metal harness before entering a narrow tunnel that leads to hell.
As I sat in the cramped seat, a metal bar lowered and clamped down on my 52-inch chest, resulting in shortness of breath and a full-blown claustrophobia attack. While I was struggling to breathe, the conveyor belt ushered me and the other passengers toward the tunnel of darkness as I feebly cried for the engineer to stop the ride. Unhinged, I screamed louder and louder for someone to stop me from entering the tunnel so I could be saved from cardiac arrest. Complete madness, heart attack, or both surely awaited me, as no one in charge seemed to hear my cries for help. But fellow passengers nearby, observing my hysterical state, screamed in unison on my behalf so that the engineer was at last alerted that a maniac needed to get off the ride.
The conveyor belt stopped, and a tall burly usher in a gray FBI sport coat approached me. I sheepishly smiled at him and said, “Do you need to speak to me in the debriefing room?” The wizened security officer chuckled, offered me his hand, and with an ashen spirit I exited the park knowing I had thrown a wrench in Universal Studios’ well-oiled ride machine all the while knowing that regardless of all my kettlebell circuit training, wheat-grass smoothies, and high-protein diet, I would never be able to overcome my fear of closed spaces.
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