My husband and daughter are amusement park freaks. The faster, higher and scarier the ride, the quicker they are lined up to experience it. Me, I hate the damn things. I like to keep my feet on the ground. I don’t feel the need to be catapulted into the air or experience the G-force the astronauts experience on takeoff. If I wanted to live that excitement, I would have signed up for NASA. Despite my fear for these rides, I still go on them …well, I used to go on them. A few years back we were at this amusement park and my daughter and husband convinced me to go on this ride that looked fun to them but oh, so terrifying to me. Still, I sucked it up and agreed to go. After an hour in line, my mind had managed to work itself into a frenzy of panic, so I was not my usual calm self when I sat in my seat and pulled down my harness. And then I noticed something: my harness was different than my husband’s harness, and it was different from my daughter’s harness. I started to look around, and I saw that my harness was different from everyone else’s freaking harness. When the ride supervisor, who was at most 16 years of age, made her way down the line to inspect everyone’s restraints, I asked her. “Hey, how come my straps are different?” To which she replied and I swear this is true, “Oh, that harness had to be repaired. But it’s fine now.” What the hell? This ride is going to flip me upside down and hurl me to the ground at a 90-degree angle, and I have a broken harness? I grabbed her by her little teenage collar and pulled her down to my face and said, “Are you screwing with me?” Well, before I could get out of my seat or spew any expletives her way, I heard a loud buzz and the ride took off into the air at about 60 miles per hour. To be honest, I don’t really remember the ride. It’s all one big frightening blur. Did I survive? Obviously. However, I declared to my family when we got back on terra firma that my days of roller coasters were done. That was until a new type of ride started to hit amusement parks – the virtual rides. These, I thought would be great. What a wonderful invention! You sit in a seat that rocks a little bit and the screen moves in front of you and you feel as if you are flying, flipping, jumping – whatever. I was psyched to give it a try, and then my husband uttered these words, “The rides are 3-D.” “What?” “3-D – Three Dimensional. You don’t have 3-D vision.” Eww, a snag. I should explain. I have only one eye. It’s not like a Peter Falk or Sandy Duncan glass-eye thing. My right eye is there; it just does not work. I never really had 3-D vision, and it hasn’t affected my life in any great way– until the arrival of 3-D rides. “Well, will they not let me on the ride? Do you have to prove you see 3-D?” “No,” he answered. “You just might not enjoy it as much.” But I decided to give it a whirl. At Universal Studios, we went on the Spiderman ride. Everyone was ducking and jumping and flinching during the ride. Me, I just sat there wondering what the hell was going on. I was in the middle seat and kept hitting my husband or daughter and saying, “What do you see? What did you see now?” By the end of the ride, they wouldn’t talk to me. Apparently, I was annoying. I tried a few more 3-D rides over the years, and I even paid for a 3-D horror movie where they give you those ridiculous glasses, but nothing miraculous happened. I tried to fake seeing the 3-D action, but truthfully, it’s easier for me to fake orgasms than to fake seeing the action of a 3-D flick. The people around me just stared as if there was something wrong with me because my reactions were so out of sync with theirs. Of course, they were out of sync – I was copying their moves, so I had to be a second or two behind them. I don’t even know what the movie was about because I was obsessed with keeping up with all the two-eyed people. I want it known that even though I am 3-D challenged, I am not bitter. I bought my husband a big HD television for our anniversary two years ago. Do I appreciate the depth that HD brings? No. I don’t even use the HD channels. What’s the point? But I don’t begrudge him, and it makes him happy, so it was a worthwhile purchase. I heard 4-D theaters now exist where the sense of smell is the fourth dimension. Since nothing is wrong with my nose, I might enjoy this experience more. However, I still may petition for discount tickets for these attractions because I miss out on some of the visual dimensions. They can have two lines: a full price line for the two-eyed people and a half-price line for the one-eyed-or-less guest. I think that’s fair. I wonder if it would catch on.