The XY Affair

ADVISORY: This entry contains mature content.

Occasionally, men do fall victim to sexual harassment. Maybe that term is a little strong for what you're about to read, but it fits. Although what happened was done in fun, not spite, it ranks as my most memorable uncomfortable moment from my time at Six Flags Over Mid-America.

Quoting from my journal of July 15, 1991:

Midway through my stint [spieling at Ninja Invasion in Old Chicago] two girls who shall be known here as X and Y started giving me some problems. They were fellow employees, and they must have had nothing to do because they both entered the stand at the same time and started coming on to me -- right in front of the guests. All this time, I'm trying to keep my concentration and run the game. They'd back me into corners, asking me questions that girls usually don't ask boys:

"Have you gotten laid yet?"

And then they'd feel me up, right when I'd be trying to spiel the race. I'm lucky I didn't make a Freudian slip. I'd break up at times when they'd rub my legs, but at least I didn't say anything embarrassing. I was embarrassed, though. Guests shouldn't see [bleep] like this -- and that's just what it was, [bleep]. I know somebody put them up to this. [Redacted]? She's a sneaky little [bleep], I think. She was the one who was fondling me during the time I was giving out stands while working as a yellow tag [management trainee] in O.C. Both X and Y left the stand occasionally to gab with others around the way, perhaps to spread the world about what they were doing to me and how I was reacting to it.

The two left for awhile after nearly a half-hour of this nonsense, and then Y came back to send me on a break. She said X was waiting for me in the backroom. When I got there, she was waiting for me all right. She half-dragged me outside and made like she was going to rip my clothes off, starting with my till belt. This girl was crazy, gone with the wind and the wind wasn't even blowing. After doing that, she led me back into the backroom, and the next thing I know, we're both on the soft and she's pretending that she wants to do the wild thing. When the steam cleared, I lay spread out on the sofa with the top button on my shirt undone and one shocked expression on my face."

This backroom incident, by the way, took place in front of several other employees, including a foreperson, laughing all the way. For the record, nothing happened below the belt.

Back to my journal, where nothing shocking happened after that until the last 15 minutes of my shift:

That's when [redacted] came up to me like I was her boyfriend and nearly hugged me. A few minutes later, she told me my face looked swollen, and maybe it did. I wouldn't have been surprised after the hijinks of X and Y. She asked for a second opinion from Kurt [a foreperson]. He didn't agree. She told me I looked sexy though. I told her it must be the glasses. She told me she thought I looked better without the glasses. Anyway, she gave me her phone number on a piece of tape as I was leaving...

Or so I thought. It turned out to be one of the numbers for Six Flags. Later I confronted her, playing around.

"What are you trying to play me for, girl? I'm not going down as a sucker!"

She said she messed up and miswrote a digit, something she always did. Yeah, sure. How does a person continuously forget how to write their own phone number?

Yet there she goes, swearing to GOD she messed up. If I had been closer to GOD at that time, I would've told her to leave GOD out of it.

And keep her hands to herself.