What If?

What if this guy was real?

Have you ever played the “What If” game? When I was in high school, we used to joke that it was the “Wouldn’t It Be Cool If” game, mostly because my very imaginative brother was always saying, “Wouldn’t it be cool if...” and then finishing it off with something like, “that tree over there suddenly came to life and starting knocking down all the other trees because it was mad about something but then we got it to calm down and it gave us rides all over town?” or “we were the only ones at this amusement park and we got to be in charge of the rides and we could just ride the roller coasters over and over and they wouldn’t even stop them in between so it would be like riding a roller coaster that lasted for like, an hour?” Of course, his were usually more creative than that, but you get the idea.

Anyway, I was thinking about this on Saturday because I had the super duper fun awesome opportunity to go PLAY at Kings Dominion (amusement park here in Virginia) with 4 of my friends from high school, including our own MMW Amber Lynae. It was like the aligning of the stars or something that we all could be in the same place at the same time, because I don’t think it’s happened since high school...or maybe when one of us got married...anyway, it’s been awhile.

Well, Amber and our friend Alicia and I were standing in line for a ride called, “Flight of Fear.” We weren’t sure what to expect, because it basically looked like a warehouse on the outside, with these signs saying things like, “Paranormal Investigations” and stuff like that. The line went through the door, and then wound around a bit inside one part of the warehouse, but then when you went around this one corner there was a giant spaceship inside. That wasn’t the ride- it was just a decorative thing you went through to get to the ride, which turned out to be an indoor roller coaster.

So we got up to this spaceship and were kind of joking around, like, “Oooh, we’re going to be abducted!” Then Amber said something like, “What if this is actually a real alien spacecraft and the theme park is just their cover?” And I said, “Yeah, they just found a storage warehouse on the edge of the park and added some stuff on the outside to make unsuspecting park visitors think it was a ride, and that’s how they lured them in...” Alicia joined in on our imagining as we proposed different experiments the aliens might perform on us and we all kind of went, “Oooooh...” like the little green monsters in Toy Story (“A visitor! From the outside! OoooOOooooH").

We had just played a little game of “What If” and it was a great way to get our creativity going and get our brains bending into unfamiliar paths. I realized that this would be such a great tool for writer’s block, and a perfect game to play with kids, especially if you’re waiting for something, like we were.

So this summer when you’re standing in a long line at an amusement park with your kids, or sitting at a restaurant waiting for your food to arrive, or waiting for the “adult swim” to be over at the pool, play your own game of “What If”...and see where it takes you....oooOOOoooH. ;-)