Photo by Bryan Lear.

I rode the zipper in high school, pretty much right after riding that giant hammer swingy ride thing. Considering how wack my inner ear imbalance is, it wasn't a good idea.

My zippermate, Cameron, was pretty enthusiastically rocking us into flips for the first ascent to the top. I stopped him pretty quickly, but the damage was already done. I tried to hold tight, flexing my stomach and all that noise, but by the time we got back around to the top of it - whammo! - I threw up out the side.

The zipper stopped almost immediately afterwards. It took a while for us to get down, and as we got closer to the bottom, I could hear the roadie rambunctiously looking for the culprit. There was no messin' around when he saw me - dude didn't even hesitate before he started his carny yawp - "It's you! That's one for the record books!"

And then, to my horror: "You hit four people!"

Sure enough, there was a small clutch of fairgoers wiping Star-vomit-glop from their hair and clothes. I mustered a weak apology and half wave as I dizzily scurried off to the bathroom, where I struggled to push fair-sized chunks of greasy fair fries from my nostrils. God, that hurt.

Also, this photo from Bryan Lear is great.

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