Today, we had about an hour to spare before heading from one place to the next. We were heading home, and decided suddenly to go ahead and stop at the go-kart place we pass all the time. We pulled into the packed parking lot – cars were lining the street, too – and it was by divine agreement that someone was leaving right as we pulled into the lot, giving us a space to park (and right by the entrance door).
Tickets were for a five-minute ride. There were regular, fast, and really-fast karts. The fastest ones require a valid driver license, though they only go about 20 miles per hour at top speed (the girl guessed 30, and was sorely mistaken). We went ahead and bought two tickets and got in line for the super fast ones. No one was ahead of or behind us, as most people were younger folks, we’ll say, or their parents who weren’t interested in driving the fastest ones.
I tell you what: we had a great time. It was a safe space for us to race and be slightly reckless and goofy and crazy and to take risks, and I have a blast. Genuinely, as soon as we started our onto the track, and I was working to block my man from passing me while I adjusted my seatbelt straps – I’d out them on properly, but then my arms weren’t long enough to reach the steering wheel, which I discovered as I took off 😛 – I felt like we were in a real-life version of Mario Kart. I even imagined shooting tortoise shells out my kart’s butt and dropping banana peels to keep him from passing me… as though that were an option. 😛
It was great. I got to practice crazy turns and get very good at them. You know, the whole hitting the break suddenly while turning the wheels quickly, so the back end swings around the sharp curve but the driver seat barely moves over the ground, just rotating almost in place, and then flooring it and taking off straight on the other side of the turn. It was way cool. I finally perfected the turn, and thought I’d broken the thing with the turn, but it was just that the timer had just run out right then, disabling the high speed of the fast karts and reminding us to exit at the end of the circuit (which I had Just started, and so had to do slowly like the normal people for most of the rest of it [only the back straight-away was disconnected from the sensor, and so we got to speed there again before hitting the sensor wall again to finish out the lap at a slow chug]).
Also, fun fact: it seems that weight plays a role in the kart’s speed success. The fact that I weigh a good portion less than my man meant that I had less traction and less speed on my kart. Even when we were on even scores on the back straightaway, both giving them full gas, his kart would leave mine behind before the end of the straightaway. (Perhaps it wasn’t weight, but that explanation made the most sense to us, versus that my kart just wasn’t as good as his. They all seemed to be the same age and quality and all, so it was unlikely that his would perform so differently like that just on its own.)
Anyway, it was such a great time, and I was smiling basically the whole time – big, toothy, open-mouthed grin smiling, it was so much fun for me.
And it was only five minutes. But I’m really glad we did it.
Thank you for that blessing today, God. Please, continue to keep us both safe. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
hannah ananas 