You Know What I Love About Water Parks?

I love the rides, but water parks aren’t ALL about the rides for me. I love the easy access to junk food, because who doesn’t love instant access to dippin’ dots, or waffle cones oozing with frozen deliciousness. But it’s not just the ice cream either, and I can’t believe I just wrote that. I love ice cream. A lot.

It’s the people watching. I love people watching. And what’s great about going to a water park on a sunny day is that I can check out people all day long and nobody knows it because I am wearing sunglasses. Checking people out at an indoor water park is a lot harder. Nobody wears sunglasses at an indoor water park; I have to take care to keep my ogling subtle.

All day long at a water park I am surrounded by half naked people, and I am constantly fascinated at how each person I see has a unique shape. You could put two women in an identical bikini in the exact same size, and it will look different on each one. So, yes, I do stare at people at the water park. And it probably makes me look weird and pervy. But really, I am admiring the art of the human body and not only the sexual aspects of it.

Speaking of art, another thing I get to see at water parks on most of the half naked bodies are tattoos. Lots and lots of tattoos. Every time I go to a water park I am constantly amazed at what people were willing to permanently etch onto their skin.

At Schlitterbahn in San Antonio I saw a man with the Ford logo tattooed onto his back. This dude liked his truck so much he got the swirly Ford cursive name on the blue oval tattooed across is back. There was no registration or trade mark on it, so I wonder if the company can sue him now? I didn’t see anyone with a Toyota or Honda logo on their person, and really wish I had so I could see Toyota tatt man and Ford tatt man duke it out.

At Six Flags in New England I saw a man with the entire cast of the Simpsons tattooed on the small of his back. Dude liked the cartoon, so he got it inked in. Every single character too.

At Wet N Wild I saw a man with a Care Bear on his shoulder. Ooooh, manly!

At Kalahari I saw a man whose arms were covered in various tattoos. On his forearm he had a bottle of booze next to a naked woman. Beneath them a ribbon swirled, on which it said “Stewed and Screwed.” Classy! Dude will never regret that one, I’m sure.

Todd and I struck up a conversation with a man in a hot tub at a ski resort once. He had some Asian characters tattooed on his forearm. Todd asked the guy what the characters meant, and the guy rattled off a bunch of things like “Strength, wisdom, integrity… blah blah blah…”

“So, how do you know it doesn’t say ‘American asshole’ on it, or something?” I asked, not being able to contain my inner smartass. Who am I kidding? There is nothing inner about my smart ass. It’s out there in front, snickering at just about everything I see. But I am always suspicious of things written in languages I don’t know how to read. (When we bought Sabine, her name was Tara Vana. Supposedly that means “Crazy Man” in Tahitian. But I know it actually meant “Loser American Dickweed.” That is the only thing that “Tara Vana” could possibly mean.)

The man chuckled and said “Well, I looked it up on the Internet before I got them done.”

Todd and I looked at each other, and I could tell we were both thinking the exact same thing, my inner smartass shut her trap before saying,“Yeah, because everything on the Internet is true, right?”