And ride the Zipper. That is what I did, after riding the ferris wheel, some hang gliding ride that made me feel a bit nauseous, and the big swings.
Know this - The Zipper has been terrifying people since before you were born. It's relatively unpredictable and it will throw you the fuck around - that is why the inside is made of padded stuff (yes) and metal bars and cage-material (which could also probably use with some padding).
That and the fact that my investigation told me that this ride is held together entirely by cotter pins.
At any rate, even if you do ride The Zipper (which you should), I can guarantee that your ride won't be as terrifying or as beautiful as mine was - here is why.
When we rolled up on The Zipper at the end of the night, there was a line, but the lights were off. We were worried that maybe it was done for the evening, but the rest of the rides were going strong. We hadn't stood in line for long before it became apparent that there were people still locked inside the metal cages that made up The Zipper's passenger cars. And it didn't look like they were going to be moving for a bit.
Unfazed, we decided to wait it out. For some reason, the thought of boarding what looked like a crazy old and somewhat crotchety ride that was going to throw me upside down in a few different directions (fine, only two), and a ride, for that matter, that didn't seem to want to co-operate with its' handlers, didn't seem wrong. It just seemed like we were going to have to wait in line for a while.
And so we did. After a while, and completely unprompted, the guy in front of us in line turned around and revealed that he had vivid dreams about The Zipper. "You know those dreams you have, and then they end?" he asked us. "Yes" we said. "These dreams aren't like that" he said.
For real.
Then they got it started up again, and we went on the ride. When we stalled out for a second, I tried to spit my gum through the cage and accidentally hit one of the ride guys having a cigarette behind the ride. I thought they were going to make the ride "break" again for sure (it was about this time that I also noticed the cotter pins, seemingly everywhere), but they did not.