31 rules for the amusement park

It's summer and if you have friends, there is a 100 percent chance you'll spend some time at an amusement park. If you don't have friends, don't worry, just hang tight and keep listening to Jim Rome.

For the rest of us, the amusement park offers the perfect escape from the mind-numbing reality of summer TPS reports and minimizing the window on your computer screen when your boss walks by. Being spun around, upside down and inside out somehow makes the sky seem bluer and the air cooler. It also makes your favorite sports team (who is in the process of planting their flag squarely upon the shores of loserdom) almost palatable. Of course, you might throw up, but everything that's really worth doing carries the risk of throwing up.

Recently, I spent the day at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. It just so happened I went during the middle of the week, which in Cedar Point terminology, is known as the unemployed skirt chasers' national holiday. My younger cousins accompanied my wife and I, and as a group, we managed to ride every roller coaster in the place.