Dodgy Construction: The Ride of Your Life

Last fall, we were intrigued by a rollercoaster located next to our local gym called The Wild Mouse. The name cracked us up, as did the fact that a gymnasium here also offered water slides, miniature golf, and amusement park games and rides.

Before we could take a picture, The Wild Mouse was disassembled.

The good news is that she's back. The bad news is that we got to watch The Wild Mouse -- and several other rides -- being constructed this summer, constructed on gravel slopes, sidewalks and old parking lots.

Dodgy is the word commonly used in the U.K. and Ireland to describe anything broken, unreliable, not good. If this isn't dodgy construction, I don't know what is. How could any parent be comfortable letting their children ride on a rollercoaster that's being balanced by some blocks of wood? Maybe we Americans are just too cautious about these types of things. But honestly, there's no way I could get on The Wild Mouse after walking past the visible foundation under which this ride was built.

Ride, as a word, doesn't have the same connotation over here. Ride is bad, very bad. Drunk men say it to girls they want to shag, if you catch my drift. Because I still don't know the word the Irish use for amusement park rides, I guess I'll leave that vernacular as is, and probably insult all the parents in Galway by calling a rollercoaster their children enjoy a "ride."