Anytime I come across a strange
character in life, I have to get a photo of him or her. However, you
can't just walk up to a person and snap his or her photo. Well, you
can, but there might be consequences. So a frequent trick I'll use
is having someone I know step into the shot next to them and take a
photo. My brother was my partner in crime this time, and the target
was the elderly gentleman you see speaking on the intercom. His name
is Joseph and he's the elevator operator at the Eiffel Tower of King's
Island.
I had to get his picture on the ride
back down because of the "rousing" speech he made on the way
up. First he ran through all the safety procedures and factoids
regarding the tower. The same spiel he's hashed out thousands of
times before I'm sure. But after he finished talking about the
tower's height and construction, he went on to add this: "Now for
those of you wondering if you can get away with jumping off the top, I'll
let you in on a little secret. We've made it tough for you.
There are bars and fencing around the top of the observation deck.
But if you're really determined, you could make your way outside the
fencing because you aren't completely closed in. Then you can drop
to your death if that's what suits you. If it were me, I'd wait a
few minutes before jumping off. The fireworks show is about to start
and I think it'd be a right nice way to go out - falling from the top
while the fireworks are going off in the sky. But that's just
me." Then the elevator opened up and everyone got off.
The ride down wasn't as funny.
He mostly went on about lovers meeting at the water park, and remarked how
it was past his time to meet any young ladies unless they were pretty
desperate. The great thing was his voice never changed. It
was this constant monotone and if you weren't paying attention, his
strange comments might blend right into his obligatory speech. I
haven't been back to King's Island since, but I hope that when I return
that he'll still be there (assuming the crippling effects of depression
haven't moved him to enact his dark fantasy already).
Update 12-06: I returned
to the park this past July. Joseph has now been replaced by a
lisping teen named Bill (who undoubtedly goes by Billy amongst his friends
when they go barhopping - and make that "Billi"). Sure,
the most logical conclusion one could reach is that Joseph wasn't on shift
or he was on shift and was working another part of the park OR was very
much alive, but working elsewhere. However, I like to think that he
fulfilled his vision and plummeted to a timely demise in the red and blue
light of the park's nightly finale. I scoured the ground about the
tower's base, but any residual splatter from the fall was long gone.
Goddamn that park has some good janitors.
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