WILD MOUSE

Growing up near the Jersey Shore offered a seasonal opportunity to seek out thrills at the many carnival rides that dotted the boardwalks up and down the coast.  Early on, our Dad would have to accompany us on the scrambler and coasters, since my mother had zero tolerance for the dizzying spin and flashing lights of the amusement park.  But there came a time when we reached the height threshold for independence, and one of the first rides I took as a solo rider, was on the WILD MOUSE. It was a rickety contraption that sat precariously at the end of a pier, looking over the endless black mirror of the Atlantic Ocean.  It was a roller-coaster of sorts, but instead of the rounded hills and valleys and rolling curves of most coasters, THE WILD MOUSE was all angles and ninety-degree turns. You didn't travel in a train of links cars, but instead  piloted  through its maze in a bullet shaped single cart, that accentuated your vulnerability.  The awkward gears clunked loudly as you made its steep ascent, and then before plunging you into darkness, it would jerk you through a series of neck whipping turns.  The car barely seemed supported by the length of the track, and its rounded nose would inch out over the end of the scaffolding before the entire car would snap to the right or left and speed downhill. 

The architect of the WILD MOUSE, must have been the same one commissioned to build Turkey's underground parking garages. I used to think that the parking garages in NYC posed a navigational challenge.  By comparison, Ankara makes the access to a Kenny parking garages seem as wide as a California freeway. The down ramps are so steep that you lose sight of the road beneath you as you descend.  The turns are so tight that you have less than an inch of clearance on either side as you try to ease into the underground labyrinth. The walls are rainbow striped with the the multi-hued colors of the hundreds of cars that have attempted to scraped by but failed to do so without giving up a piece of themselves.  Dim lighting makes it difficult to find the directional signs that are  posted randomly.  Huge cement foundation pillars form a tight fisted grid that makes it impossible to ease into or out of individual parking spots.  The lanes between the the parking spots are narrow and barely able to make room for one car , but Turkish drivers try to wedge past each other anyway. Stuck on an exit ramp, with nary a quater inch of leeway to make the turn toward daylight, visions of the WILD MOUSE drifted into my consciousness.  Of course, at nine, I was seeking an adrenaline rush.  At fifty-nine, I just wanted to park the car without filing an insurance claim.