I didn’t know that they had amusement parks like this, until I recently saw this advertisement . . .
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Americans are unfairly deprived of what it’s like to be a genuine civilian war victim. Americans experience the effects of bombs and bullets from a distance, through antiseptic television reports and glitzy video games. Our research has shown, however, that many of you want a much more up-close, detailed, exciting and visceral experience. We also realize that Americans have a difficult time learning anything at all in the absent of a concurrent entertainment experience.
It is for this reason that we have built Civilian Casualty Theme Park to give you the Adventure and Experience of being a civilian war victim. We offer you the thrill and exhilaration of BEING THERE while your own neighborhood is ripped apart by warfare. This is no ordinary theme park. We give you up-close and personal real-life action where the bombs actually explode. If you like haunted houses and slasher films, you’re going to love Civilian Casualty Theme Park!
We use state-of-the-art computer simulations and pharmacology combined with hundreds of highly trained actors and technicians to give you the gut-wrenching and mind-twisting experience of what it is like to be a civilian war victim. For starters, our experts and technicians will construct a replica of your own neighborhood in anticipation of your scheduled visit.
After allowing you to settle in at your own residence in your own personalized Hollywood-caliber “neighborhood,” your heart will start to pound when you first hear the lifelike buzz of incoming cruise missiles and the percussive detonations of dozens of warheads. You will jump as you see “your” windows shatter and you will moan as you begin to feel the pain of simulated glass shards in your own flesh. Your electric power will go down in the early-going, triggering pandemonium throughout the neighborhood. In the darkness you will hear and feel a symphony of explosives, some of which will periodically knock down portions of the walls of your “residence.” Looters will run wild. Fires will rage (putting them out without water earns you bonus points). Your “family” will be huddled within your “home,” which will fill with additional dust and debris by the hour. Falling bricks and plaster will knock you silly and test your will to survive (you will be graded on your performance—high point earners win certificates good for redemption at our gift shop).
Because we want to give you the full experience, we arrange for you to stay overnight so that you can feel the rumbling and percussions of ordnance all night long. (We also offer three-day and seven-day customized adventures). Based on family photos you provide, our technicians will prepare and project laser images of your dad’s dead body in your front doorway. We will really test your mettle with holographic images of your mom hobbling around screaming as she tries to stop the bleeding of her freshly amputated lower right leg. EVERYTHING will be extremely realistic.
Yes, this will cost more than most other theme parks, but it will be the experience of a lifetime. It will be something you’ll talk about for years with all of your friends, families and war-gaming buddies.
There’s more. Our staff pharmacists will carefully inject you with all of the necessary potions to induce PTSD, sleep deprivation and hallucinations to round out your civilian experience of battle. Some participants have reported such deep despair that it has occurred to them (during the simulation) that they should never have signed up for this program and that their lives have been utterly ruined! We can’t guarantee this particular experience, but it has been known to occur—you might be one of the lucky ones!
We think of everything down to the tiniest detail. We cover the streets and sidewalks with fresh and dried blood. You will have the opportunity to explore these streets, which we’ve also covered with simulated decapitated corpses and dismembered torsos. You will delight to the sights and sounds of emaciated animals and shell-shocked neighbors wandering the neighborhood without any conscious purpose or hope. We arrange for some of these “neighbors” to come upon the remains of their own neighbors and friends, many of them with limbs or faces blown off. Nine out of ten of our patrons are brought to real tears! THIS IS A QUALITY EXPERIENCE THAT YOU WILL NOT FIND AT RIVAL THEME PARKS.
We offer you things that no human being could ever really tolerate! In the morning (the second day of your standard program), you will have the opportunity of hearing shouting outside, then you will experience your “front door” getting kicked in by “enemy militia” (our trained actors) [caveat: this part of the program is optional-an extra $37.50 per person]. These “enemy soldiers” will slam you against the wall and scream at you, accusing you of being a terrorist. This part of our program is guaranteed to cause you to urinate in your pants out of fright (we back this with our money-back guarantee).
Eventually, you will feel the pangs of real hunger, but there will be no edible food and the only available water will be rancid. Dust will choke you. Raw sewage will run in the streets and you will wretch at the authentic smells of a neighborhood destroyed by highly orchestrated and sophisticated military violence.
We will even provide you with a simulated newborn baby (it is a soft electronically-sophisticated cooing doll). You will have the chance to earn points as you try to shield your “baby” from falling bricks and dust. We will program your “baby” to become weak and lethargic at pre-determined times and you will have the opportunity to experience the excruciating excitement of not being able to find a doctor. You will be tested for long minutes while your “baby” struggles to breathe. Eventually, you will FEEL THE HORROR of looking at your baby’s silent ashen face. We will even provide a simulated “gravesite.” Several of your “neighbors” will help you to bury your “baby” during a lull in the bombing. Everything will be incredibly realistic-you will not be disappointed! It will all seem so real that you’ll be back for more!
After you are finished with your session, we will usher you over to our exclusive and patented Recovery Center, where technicians and therapists will work with you to cleanse any undue mental side effects that might have occurred. We carefully conduct exit interviews using techniques perfected during the Milgram studies of the early 1960’s. WE WILL PREPARE YOU TO GO HOME, ONCE AGAIN BE ABLE TO ENJOY A WAR TO THE SAME EXTENT THAT YOU DID BEFORE YOU VISITED OUR CIVILIAN CASUALTY THEME PARK (this is another one of our money-back guarantees). We absolutely guarantee that no part of this experience will turn you into a dove. We take care of everything so that you can sit back and savor every detail of your Civilian War Victim entertainment experience.
[When you come in to sign up, remember to come in ten minutes early so that you can review and sign our 673-page waiver and disclaimer form, by which you agree to hold the theme park harmless for any damages to you or your family].
Also Coming Soon!
UNPLANNED PREGNANCY THEME PARK. See what it’s like to have an unplanned pregnancy where the government takes control of your most personal decisions. We simulate a world where there’s absolutely no birth control available-where there’s no control over your own body and where there is no reasonable medical care for your baby once it is born.
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[Author’s suggestion: if you think the above Civilian War Casualty theme park idea is sick, you have a moral obligation to protest the use of military violence upon civilians, except as a last resort (where every other solution has already been attempted) and as a truly defensive measure.]
Erich, might I suggest one addition to your theme park? The temperature inside the park should be elevated above 100 degrees (F) during the day, with all-day sunshine, to simulate a hot, desert environment and to provide the terrifying experience of burning, relentless thirst. People can survive for forty days without food, but are lucky to live just one or two days in such heat without potable water.
Also, I'd like to announce my own theme park: the Stem Cell Research Theme Park. Visitors to this park are infected with a fatal disease for which stem cell research offers the only cure, and are then confronted with a government that refuses to fund stem cell research on the grounds that it "values human life." As visitors feel the exciting physical and mental anguish of a painful, lingering death, they must try to make sense of the self-contradictory government that says it "values human life," but does not value their lives. Bonus points for visitors who take the advanced ride: a government that paradoxically refuses to fund stem cell research on the grounds that it "values human life," but eagerly funds totally unnecessary foreign invasions that kill hundreds of thousands of people.
And, coming soon: the Unaffordable Healthcare Theme Park. Visitors to this park have their health insurance cancelled and are then required to navigate their way through a dangerous obstacle course where one wrong move could put then into the hospital with a serious illness or injury. Again, there are bonus points for visitors who take the advanced ride: a government that changes bankruptcy laws to make it impossible for people with crippling medical debt to declare bankruptcy.