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Ah, the Zipper. Possibly the greatest example of evil genius as applied to the amusement park industry: free-spinning cars on a conveyor belt moving along the perimeter of a rotating arm. When this thing really gets going, it will not only leave you completely disoriented but will scatter your personal effects over most of the midway. What most distinguishes the Zipper from its other multi-axes bretheren are its eighth-grade-science project looks and the cages, which force you into a hunched-over standing position and forgo restraints in favor of a thin layer of foam. You basically have to wedge yourself in whichever way you can; the only thing holding you in place is a padded bar attached to the door (so if the door opens, away you go). The defining characteristic of the Coney Island specimen is the impression of danger: the doors upon which your life depends are "secured" with what look like large bobby pins; what padding remains is often duct-taped in place, and the occasional ray of sunlight peaks through gaps in the seams of the sheetmetal pods. In select cages, the LATERAL play will be significantly more terrifying then even the usual shaking, popping, and lurching that accompany every forward revolution. Note that the quality of the ride will depend to a large degree on whos at the controls (inevitably a person whose skin sports more ink than the pages of a King James Bible) and the weight distribution in the cage. If everythings just right, the cage will flip over and over in rapid succession, and you may find yourself, as I recently did, renewing your relationship with the Creator and bargaining away any number of bad habits for the inestimable privilege of standing whole and sound on solid ground. Many rides will thrill you, some will even scare you, but for a true lesson in the fleeting preciousness of life, look no further than the Coney Island Zipper.
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