For years, one of the many, many banes of my existence has been amusement parks. Most of what you'll find at amusement parks — unwinnable games of skill, overpriced and overcooked food, constant organ music, and especially carnies, are all things you'd cross the street to avoid anywhere else. There's only one reason to go to an amusement park — to wait in long lines for three minutes of twisting, turning and falling on mechanical contraptions designed to make you feel like you're going to go splat against the pavement like a tomato. That's the part I really, really hate.

My aversion to rides started when I was about 10 years old. My older sister and I went on a spinning ride at a local park where we sat in a big teacup. As the big teacups moved around the ride, you could also turn a wheel inside your own teacup, spinning it with enough centrifugal force that your face would peel back like a test astronaut's.

That's what my sister did. She turned and turned, faster and faster, and with each turn, I felt my stomach flip over. I tried to let her know I was getting ill, but all she heard were my girlish screams, which, to be fair, might have been panic but could have been excitement. (The tears, on the other hand, were completely unambiguous.)

By the time it was over, I had an upset stomach that stayed with me until my 12th birthday. I vowed never to get on a ride again. I'd go to an amusement park whenever duty called, but my feet would never leave the chewing gum and cotton-candy-covered tarmac.

I kept my vow all the way through high school, college and early married years, even though I married a woman who turned out to be a roller coaster junkie. For years she would ride me about my inability to ride, cajoling, teasing, and even calling me a "roller coaster wimp," until I ended the conversation by stomping off to go throw baseballs at some stuffed clowns.

All of our five children inherited my wife's "need for speed" gene, too, each of them jumping on board the first summer their little heads were high enough to hit the "YOU MUST BE THIS TALL" bar. At first I thought it would be great — my wife would have others to ride with, but then it hit me — being mocked by six people is approximately six times worse than being mocked by just one. Still, every year, on our school's annual amusement park day, I go. And I watch.

Then, last summer, within a day after our yearly trip to the amusement park, my wife got out of bed, took a step and then fell over on her side. She got up and wobbled across the room as if she was wearing a blindfold. This continued for days and days. It's just a figure of speech, and I've never personally spent time with one, and of course trust my wife when she says she hasn't either, but she was walking around almost exactly like a drunken sailor.

This same thing had happened in the past — the dizziness, not the drunken sailor — but was only temporary and involved only minor balance problems. This time it lasted for weeks. We went to the doctor, thinking there was something terribly wrong. When all tests came back negative, the doctor offered one last guess. Sometimes, he said, carnival rides can cause serious inner ear problems.

"You haven't been on a roller coaster, have you?" he asked. We thought about it, and suddenly it hit us — the dizziness always came in the days following the annual amusement park visit.

The doctor warned that should my wife continue her high-flying lifestyle, the spells could get more frequent until, at some point, she'd be permanently off kilter. She turned to me in shock.

"I'll never, ever go on a carnival ride again!" she said. I tried to look sympathetic, but I just kept thinking of all the times I'd been called a roller coaster wimp. Wrinkling up my brow in sympathy while trying to suppress a smile just made me look like I had to go to the bathroom.

So this summer, while our kids are being whipped around on antiquated machines that only seem deadly, but likely are not, both my wife and I will be standing off to the side, safe and sound, the bottoms of our feet stuck safely to the tarmac. With gum.

And I won't even call her a roller coast wimp.

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