$71 Well Spent

I just got back a wedding in Puerto Vallarta. I had a really great time drinking cervezas y margaritas and making the locals laugh with my poor command of their language and currency. Don't know why it was so hard to grasp the fact that 10 pesos equaled roughly one dollar, but it was.

Anyway, my friend Catherine and our new friend Holly and I decided to go on a Canopy Tour. This entailed us getting into a rickety truck (which began its life as a Russian military vehicle) and riding miles and miles up into the mountains via a one lane dirt road. I don't recommend doing it with a hangover, but I managed to survive without vomiting over the side. Yay, me!

After we arrived at the site and got into our harnesses, we we trekked up the mountain to the first zip cord. As you can see, I enjoyed it:

About halfway through the tour, I realized that this was like Mexico's version of the Park. The banter between the staff, the wacky antics of the video guy, the guides showing off for the cute girls... Then one of our guides broke out a Park classic- he dropped a bolt, which he had surreptitiously hidden in his pocket, as he was buckling the middle-aged lady from South Dakota onto the zip cord. He was all, "Where'd that come from? Ah, you'll probably be fine! Off you go!"

Weebles Wobble But They Don't Jump Down

I recently read that the Dean of Admissions at MIT resigned because she fabricated her academic credentials way back in the 70's. Which reminded me of a bungee supervisor at the Park, who also acheived power through a lie. (dun Dun DUN!!) His name was Bill, but we called him Weeble. Because that's what he looked like. He was red-faced and shiny and round. And while Weebles, with their wobbling and their not falling down, give joy to children, Bill was a total douche. And though Marilee Jones fibbed on her resume, she apparently was very good at her job and was beloved by the MIT community and the world of higher education. Bill was completely incompetent. And he wore lame sunglasses.

Now you may be saying, "Come on, Therese! Are you really equating the dean of one of the most prestigious colleges in the U S of A to a low-level supervisor at an amusement park remembered more for its injury rate than its rides and attractions?" Yes. Yes, I am.

Anyhoo, one of the former bungee supervisors had moved to Colorado and his position needed to be filled. Enter the Weeble. According to his resume, he had been a bungee supervisor someplace in upstate New York. Or maybe it was the Jersey shore. The point is, no one checked his references. He got the job. At first, we just thought he was a dick. But a dick you kind of felt sorry for, because he was the kind of dick who desperately wanted to be popular.

Then we started noticing that, though he would frequently climb the tower to offer the jumpmasters his opinion, he never jumped. He would always walk back down the stairs. Weird. And he was frequently out of his area. He'd be spotted in down in Motorworld, or up at Surf Hill. Once, he even came to check on me at the summit of the Alpine Slide. Which, despite what has been said about Water World, really was the easiest position in the entire Park. You literally just sat there all day because, legally, someone had to be there. There was no contact with patrons, since they got off at a mid-station. You might possibly have to maybe take a cart off, if they missed it at the top of the slide. And someone might call you to ask about the weather, since the spot was at the top of a mountain and thus offered a pretty sweet, and long, view. It was a great place to get a tan, read, smoke the smoke... But I digress.

He would show up for the interdepartmental water polo games (held afterhours in the Wave Pool) not to compete or to cheer on our team, but to leer at his female subordinates in bathing suits. The day after one match, he came up to me at the tower and said, "Therese, I saw another side of you last night. Of your top half, that is." Ew! Inappropriate, and worse, not even funny!

Management caught on to his duty-shirking, sexual-harassing ways pretty quickly. Upon a belated check of his references, it was found that he exaggerated his qualifications. He had worked at another bungee facility, but briefly and not in any sort of supervisory capacity. The Weeble was shown the door.

Several months later, as I was buying a ridiculous pair of white vinyl go-go boots at the Joyce Leslie in the Rockaway Mall, my friend Stacey came tearing up to me with a look of horror-spiked delight on her face. She had spotted Bill and his lady friend at the back of the store shopping for racy underthings. You stay classy, Weeble!

Debunking the Steve Albini Connection

As awesome as this album is, it has nothing to do with the Park.

Too bad, really.

Orange Soda

Double shifts and 60-hour work weeks were common at the Park. It was the only way to rack up enough hours to qualify for an unlimited ski season pass and besides, all your friends were at the Park, so what else were you going to do? Might as well come to work.

One day, my friend Mark* and I were pulling doubles at the top of the Bungee Tower. It was well into the afternoon and neither of us had had a break. Mark got on the radio and tried to get someone to relieve us, but we were short on jump masters that day and it was going to be awhile before anybody would be able to come up. A few minutes later my sister Anne Marie came back from her break. Mark called down for her to come up because he needed an orange soda. Anne Marie put on a harness and made her way up the tower. Mark jumped down and took off towards the Lodge. A few minutes later, we saw him out in the parking lot, walking toward his car. Confused, I yelled out to ask him where he was going. Mark made a vague gesture, got into his VW and drove away. All the way to his mom's house in Florida. For the rest of the season, the orange soda was our rallying cry anytime we felt exploited or unappreciated.

Fast forward 10-plus years. Mark and Jen, his girlfriend, showed up at my last birthday party, said hello and promptly disappeared. I later found out that they left after waiting at the bar for 20 minutes without so much as a nod from the bartender. Jen's all, "We can't leave! We just got here! It's Therese's birthday!" Mark's response, "She knows about the orange soda. She'll understand."

*Mark T, not to be confused with Opposite Song-singing Mark B.

The Ride That Spawned A Thousand Legends

I give you the most notorious ride at the Park, the Cannonball Loop- pictured here on one of the rare days it was operational:

Yes, it is a looping water slide. Crazy, I know. Rumors that someone got stuck at the top of the loop or that a dummy was dismembered during testing were just that- rumors. I think...

This was an enjoyable ride to attend, because most people were completely afraid of it, so you didn't have much to do but sit around and talk with your co-workers. Though if your co-workers were creepy, as they sometimes were, then it wasn't so much fun. Anyway, on the infrequent days that we had enough staff on hand and enough patrons in the Park to justify opening the Loop, the protocol went like this:

• Manager and maintenance inspect the ride for proper water pressure, cracks in lining that could snag a rider, etc.
• Employee volunteers are sought to test the ride. When no one volunteers, incentives (bribes) are offered, lunch, cash, a date with a Jungle Chick...
• Eventually some poor fella agrees to be the tester. He (it was always a he) strips down to his shorts, removes any jewelry, is hosed down (for maximum slippery-ness) and off he goes into the tube, to emerge seconds later looking shaky and pale.

Once the ride was cleared for operation, the waiting began. Like I said, most patrons were too afraid (0r too sensible) to attempt the Loop. And a good portion of those who wanted to were nixed because of inappropriate attire- anyone wearing anything with zippers or grommets or anything that could possibly cause a snag was turned away. Too big? Sorry, you could get stuck. Too small? Ooh, you probably won't get up enough speed to clear the top, why don't you try the Bumper Boats instead?

If the rider got to the top, he (Again, the riders were mostly dudes. Read into that what you will.) suffered the final indignity of being sprayed with a garden hose. The top attendant then instructed the rider on the only acceptable ride position (on your back, feet first, arms folded across chest, ankles crossed), waited for the hatch attendant to check inside for any weirdness (cracks, water not flowing, etc), and then WHOOSH! Off they went. They made a godawful racket in there, with the bumping around and the screaming, but they always made it out alive, though no one was foolish enough to ride it a second time.

All Right, Get on the Bus!

This is one of my favorite Park memories of all time:

This guy here? This is Jamie. He's one of my absolute faves. I stopped by to see him one day and we found this bus in a storage room. It was originally used as a display in one of the retail shops. I don't know who came up with the idea of getting into the display, but Jamie seized on it. It took some wriggling, but he managed to get in relatively easily. Getting him out was more difficult, but I'm pleased to say that both he and the bus survived.

Fruit as Projectile.

I don't want to give anyone the impression that all anyone ever did while working at the Park was act like a responsibility-shirking jerk, but, since most of the job involved sitting around waiting for something to happen, you made your own fun. And that fun was mostly of the Jackass variety.

Watching Michael & Dwight throw a watermelon off the roof of Dunder-Mifflin on the Office last night reminded me of one of those times. For a few seasons in the mid-90s, the Park featured a ride called the Sling Shot. It was billed as "Reverse Bungee Jumping." Two people were strapped into a pod, which was suspended by thick rubber cords between two metal poles. Increase the tension on the cords and boom! The pod goes flying upward. And then downward. And then upward again. (See this similar, but somehow safer-looking, ride in Reno, NV.) It was fantastically scary-- not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.

One night, just after the Park closed, the attendants decided to see what would happen if they launched a watermelon. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect. (As long as what you expected was a watermelon-sized crater at the base of the ride and an impressive pattern of fruit splatter. Oh, and MOD Al's apoplectic episode when he discovered the damage the next morning.)

Water World Wars

Most of my Park days were spent working in Water World. Someone paid me to stand around in a bathing suit and get a tan. It's what I would have done all summer anyway so why not collect a pay check? Of course, I took my life guard class and test, and I passed (Thank God my brother DJ was one of the instructors) but I worked as a "ride attendant". I spent my days watching people ride the tube ride and, one year, sliding down Surf Hill. I also gave a lot of "Hello good morning and welcome to the Park..." speeches. Water World was a cush job regardless of which ride you worked.

Every summer we had Water World Wars. All of the employees in water world came to the park one hour before it opened, broke into 2 teams divided by the rides we worked on and competed in the most absurd events you can imagine. We essentially rode every single ride in water world in a way the ride was not intended to be used and in ways that we would have kicked people out of the park for. Of course I don't actually recall there being a prize for the winning team. Maybe there was, but more likely not.

So in my first year as a ride attendant I competed in Water World Wars. In the midst of a tough race we came to the 21-man chain. Here every member of the team sat behind one another on the Green Water Slides, grabbed the person in front of them by the shoulders and the entire team raced down the water slide. There were 2 slides so it was a race to the bottom. The first team down and out of the pool at the bottom won. In true Jersey style, I had absurdly long nails (not elegantly long and manicured--long like talons). As my team got to the bottom of the slide and hit the small pool, the impact made me jump a little and I grabbed the shoulders of the guy in front of me harder. My nails dug into him and he jumped. His shoulder hit my nose and it broke-I immediately passed out. As everyone in my team ran out of the pool to win the race, I lay face down, passed out, with a broken and bleeding nose--someone actually had to come in and get me out. My team lost the race.

Truly a shining moment--I had 2 black eyes for weeks--my nose has never recovered.

Now I'm really stretching.

But I'll allow it, because of the time I was reading Breakfast of Champions at the mid-station of the Transmobile and Al, the Manager on Duty, threatened to throw the book in the Mini Golf pond if he caught me reading at my post again.

RIP, Kurt Vonnegut

A tale that is tangentially related to the Park

I'm having trouble with my Cannonball Loop post, so here's a little something to tide you over until I tell the story of the scariest ride ever:

One summer night, some of my Park friends and I decided to go to the Warwick Drive-in.* On the way, we stopped for provisions at Gary's, a popular bar and and packaged goods establishment. After paying for my six-pack, I stopped to say hello to a Park acquaintance named Charlie, who was seated in his usual spot. Charlie was my favorite drunk. It was rumored that he lived above the bar. At an All-Night Ski Party, I saw him slide headfirst down Surf Hill, through a fetid puddle of muck and leaves, and into a wall.

As we were chatting, a small man came out of the kitchen. He was sporting a Yosemite Sam moustache and in his hand were several sticks of dynamite- taped together, fuses braided, the works. Instead of cowering in terror, or trying to disarm Yosemite Sam, the majority of the bar's patrons started chasing him with their cigarette lighters.

I turned to Charlie, "Do you think that's real dynamite?"

"Probably," he replied. With that, I took my leave. The bar is still standing, so either Yosemite Sam was faster than all the drunks, or someone came to their senses and stopped the madness.

*Which is still in operation and currently showing Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse. You should go. For reals.

Remember kids, always wear sunscreen.

See my nose? If I ever get skin cancer, I can probably trace it back to that sun burn. Melissa, obviously, was more diligent with her SPF 30.

And I like how our black shorts make us look as if we're floating torsos. Spoooooky.....

An Interesting Short (Or, The Most Brilliant Patron Identifier)

I'll try to spin the most minor of The Park's idiosynchracies into something entertaining:

We all gaze longingly into the middle-distance and recall our own departments as the coolest areas in The Park to work- Bungee Tower had suburban testosterone and views of thunderstorms rolling into the valley from McAfee. Lola Cars folks got to race around "testing the cars," and scam food from the Lola Cafe all day. Alpine Base sat in AC and ruled over the slide-grommets' destinies. First Aid rolled the dice of potential HIV exposure mixed in with a healthy dose of boredom, spades, and laziness. GS got to pick up baby diapers from the Wave Pool. But nobody could beat the gig held at the top of Big and Little Gironomo.

These life guards truly had the cush show. They were the creme de la creme- or at least knew someone in a low-grade supervisory role- and hung out at the top of the cliff jumps. The cliff jumps were always shady as a lazy summer day- a cool breeze blew off the water of the 20-foot-deep pool below; the sound of waterfalls echoed from within this oasis of trees that was tucked between the bumper boats and the Tiki Bar. These guards were the most physically fit- they all looked good in The Park-issue shorts or one-piece suits. They could jump from 30 feet above and descend upon the hapless swimmer, thereby saving their pathetic lives from certain demise in the tragic and uncharted waters of Vernon Valley.

I was already working at The Park and into my second summer season when I had noticed it. My middle-distance gaze today cannot recall if I was tending to a nondescript head injury, or maybe boarding and collaring a neck injury in the Colorado River Rapids, but there it was. "CFS."

As the kind of person who usually plays off something I don't understand, waiting until it's meaning or definition reveals itself through casual conversation or some other means of learning it's context, I waited curiously. But I kept seeing "CFS" on the wristbands of patrons, written in black sharpee marker. Sometimes in the Base area, online at Tarzan, hanging poolside at the Wave Pool, at the Signal Six Code Yellow at the queue pool- everywhere I went.

The mystery was solved for me one day at the top of Big, in the shade. I had been hanging around there with Steve and Jimmy- two lifeguards who were supposed to be The Shit and had graduated from saving a dozen a day from The Wave Pool- and I casually posed the question about "CFS."

I had a good segue. Steve had just turned away a patron from the 30-foot jump after checking his wristband, which even I could spy had "CFS" conspicuously emblazoned in bold black upon it. I said, "Hey, why could'nt that guy jump?"

Steve glanced down at the next patron's band- which was clean of this demarcation- and let him pass on to the jump. He responded, "Care-Free Swimmer."

"Huh?" I asked. That patron had passed and jumped; the line empty.

"Can't Fuckin' Swim. These assholes come here and jump into 20-foot water thinking it's as deep as their bath tub and they sink to the goddamn bottom. I see CFS on their wristband, I know they've already been rescued from drowning once today. Probably at the Wave Pool. I'll be goddamned if I'm gonna jump off of this into that ice-water and pull him out again. I swear, these fuckers sink right to the bottom, and they're always 200 fucking pounds."

He paused, realizing he had to clarify the dual meaning "CFS." "If someone asks what CFS means, though, we tell them 'Care-Free Swimmer.'"

"Oh," I said. Mysteries solved.

Yeah, these guys had the cush show, and I guess they jumped off that cliff to rescue folks a lot less often than I had figured. After all, the Wave Pool guards had already screened out most of the victims for them.

Much Better Than A Snow Angel

I've been going through old photos lately, hoping to find blog gold. Like this. This is Joe. He sculpted a scale model of his VW Golf out of snow, proving that A) he really, really liked his car, and B) the Triple Chair is seriously underused.

It doesn't get more Jersey than this.

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, here's a clip of the Misfits, sans Glenn Danzig, performing at the Park in the mid-1990s:



Jerry Only and Doyle both live in town.* Their dad owns a factory. I think Jerry coaches little league. Or is it youth soccer? They are pillars of the community. And the kids? They love 'em.


*As does Black Flag's Robo and Bobby Blitz of Overkill. What's attracting all these rockers? Must be the fresh mountain air. (Though, if the rumors are true, Bobby's son has severe allergies and spends most of his time in a bubble.)

I think this post's mostly filler...

Here's a commercial from the Park's heyday:



Oh, and Lady in the Yellow Shirt? It was never, ever like going to Broadway.

Joe the Sign Guy

The signs at the Park would not have won any design contests. Most were purely informational, with vinyl letters affixed to a green or brown-painted piece of plywood. They were all made by an old hippie named Joe. He was the Sign Guy. Joe the Sign Guy.

Sometimes, when it got slow in the sign shop he would pick up some extra shifts in Lift Operations. He would come into the office before he was scheduled to start, sit down with a big sigh and say, "Hiiii TheRESE." It was always surprising to hear such a lilting singsong come out of such a big dude.

One day, he came in to the office while I was in the midst of payroll reconciliation, shift change and a general nervous breakdown. He sat down and greeted me as usual. After dealing with whatever jerky 18-year old was hassling me over his shift assignment I turned to him and started complaining about how hard it was to get anything done in that office. I needed some sort of Do Not Disturb sign, but meaner. Would he make me one that said Fuck Off?

"Sure, TheRESE. I'm low on vinyl in the shop, but as soon as I get more in, you got it."

I promptly forgot all about the Fuck Off! sign. But Joe, bless his heart, did not. A year or so later, I stopped by the Park during the off season to visit a friend. As I passed the sign shop, the window flew open, and through the cloud of cigarette (and possibly pot) smoke that billowed out I heard Joe yell, "TheRESE! I have something for you!"

Sure enough, it was a FUCK OFF! sign. The plywood was painted white, the letters were red. It was beautiful.

SnOasis, or, What Happens When You Try To Run A Summer Ride In Winter

Unlike this winter, 1996's was a cold one. The Park, in conjunction with a New York City Top 40 Radio Station, decided to PUT ON A SHOW!!!! An outdoor concert to feature, among others, Noel Gallagher from Oasis. To make it more of an Extravaganza, management decided to open the Bungee Tower for the day.

I was living in Boston at the time, but decided to come down for the show. I hadn't been home in awhile, and this seemed as good an excuse to make the trip as any. Plus, it totally made my Brit Pop-loving co-workers in the record store jealous. So I hopped on the bus and high-tailed it down to New Jersey.

My sister and I arrived at the Park the next morning and made our way out to the tower. Our friend Steve was already there, setting up the airbags. The sun was shining. The air was cold. The stage was set up in the parking lot. Music filtered over-- Alanis Morrissette, Garbage, and, of course, Oasis. Wonderwall, to be exact. It's a pretty song. We heard it about 17 times that day.

Steve and I climbed to the top of the tower, where we realized that, in addition to being cold, it was also windy. And icy. So windy, that the steel cables that attached to the top of the rubber bungee cords (which allowed the jumpers to be safely lowered to the ground after their jump) were blowing off the retrieval arms (used to pull the cord back in to the top of the tower, thus allowing the next jumper to be buckled to the end of the cord.) To correct this, Steve or I had to climb up on to a catwalk above the jump platform and manually reposition the wayward cable. There was no ladder to facilitate this. You had to climb on to the railing and hoist yourself up. It was no big deal in the summer, but factor in the cold and the wind and the ice? Danger! Luckily, neither of us plummeted to our death.

Back to the cold. We had been given a space heater. We presumed it was to keep us warm. Not sure how one puny heater was going to keep two people warm in the middle of a howling gale, we hit on an idea-- Let's take everything out of the equipment locker, put the heater in, and sit in it! Genius! We later found out that we had been given the heater not out of concern for our well-being, but for that of the cords. Seems they were only safety tested to work in temperatures above freezing. Whoops!

So we huddled in our box, listened to Wonderwall on an almost constant loop and prayed that no one was crazy enough to want to jump in those conditions. But, unfortunately for us, there's always someone willing to walk up seven stories in ski boots.

Oh, and Noel Gallagher? He showed up right before his scheduled start time, played two songs and then stomped off the stage and into a waiting limo. Guess the poor fella was cold.

The Story of Bouncy and Fish

One day, I decided to visit the Park on my day off. A friend was in town and we had no other plans, so why not? First stop, the bungee tower. We put on our harnesses and climbed to the top. There were two jumpmasters* working at the time, but patrons from three weight classes had been sent to the top.

There were a total of 5 weight classes, each named for the color of elastic used to make the cords: Pink (80-120lbs), Blue (121-140 lbs), Green (141-180 lbs), Orange (181-220), and Black (221-260lbs). Greens and Blues were the most common weight classes, and we would rotate the other three cords based on demand.

Since I had to wait my turn, I thought I'd be helpful and jump the woman waiting for third weight class. Her name was Bouncy. She was an Orange. While setting up the cord, I introduced myself and made small talk with the woman. People tended to get very nervous while waiting to jump, so it was always best to try to be as reassuring as possible. My conversation with Bouncy went something like this:

Bouncy: "Therese, have you done this before?"
Therese: "Sure, I do it every day!"
Bouncy: "Really? Doesn't it hurt your coochie?"
Therese: "No, Bouncy. I can honestly say that it's never hurt my coochie."
Bouncy (yelling to her sister on the ground): "Yo, Fish! Fish! I asked if this was gonna hurt my clit and she said NO!!!"

So over the edge Bouncy went. As she was, er, bouncing, she looked up at me and hollered, "Therese, you were right! It don't hurt the clit at all!!!!"

Sigh. Did I mention it was my day off?


*the top attendant, responsible for sending the patrons over the edge. Literally.

No Fear

Part of the bungee tower mythology was that the guys who wore the "No Fear" t-shirts (second most-hated t-shirt after Big Johnson and Co-ed Naked Anything) had the highest walk-down rate. I don't know if it's true, but we liked to say so.

Working bungee was probably the best gig at the park. (Though my friend Dana was a jungle girl in the Tarzan show and got to wear a boa constrictor. You'd have to ask her about that one. Anyway.) One part I liked was checking out the tattoos. One guy had the names of 12 different women on him. I kept cross-referencing his date's ID with the guy's ink to see how she ranked. (Her name was written in small letters near his wrist, incidentally. I guess she was new.)

But what I loved the most was watching the men psyche each other up for the big jump. Sometimes they did it with manly high-fives and sometimes they did it with playful accusations that the jumper was just a big piece of female genitalia. Boys will be boys.

My favorite exchange went like this:
Jumper #1: Nick.
Jumper #2: Sup.
Jumper #1: Represent, yo.
Jumper #2: No doubt.

I learned that "Represent, yo" almost directly translated to mean, "Jump bravely from this bungee tower, so we can tell the people of Queens, New York of your intrepid act."

Or something like that.

Mark B and the Importance of Recycling

It's funny how, years later, the Park is still very much a part of my life. None of my other jobs are like that. Sure, I keep in touch with people I met while toiling for one company or another, but this is different. I'm not entirely sure if it's because I worked there while young and impressionable, or what. Probably not, because I also worked at the A&P around the same time and I never feel the urge to tell funny stories about Life in the Supermarket. And no one from the A&P has ever called me up to share stories about our former co-workers. Like my friend Mike did recently. Without even pausing to say hello, he launched into the details of his latest Mark B sighting.

But before I get into the story, let me take this opportunity to explain who Mark B is. Mark B is developmentally disabled. Highly functioning, but developmentally disabled nonetheless. He worked on the Alpine Slide. He usually held the chairs at the bottom of the lift so they wouldn't smack the patrons in the ass when they sat down. Or he would stand at the top ride area and instruct the patrons to follow the large arrow painted on the ground when stepping off the chair lift. He was well suited to these tasks.

He also had a 'radio station' in his house. As far as I could figure it, that meant he had a microphone hooked up to his stereo so he could sing along to the music he was listening to. And that music was usually Sesame Street-related. One of his favorites was The Opposite Song.* It's a catchy number. Everyone in Alpine Center caught Opposite Fever. As far as I can recall, it was the only song ever performed over the parkwide 2-way radio frequency.

Most importantly, he was a vehement recycler. He would make the rounds to all the offices in the Park (and later, area post offices) collecting their cardboard and empty bottles, which he would then take to the recycling center. Didn't matter if you were saving the boxes to use later or if you weren't quite finished with your beverage.

Which leads me back to Mike's phone call. He ran into Mark while visiting the current incarnation of the Park with his family. He was holding an empty water bottle. Mark B tried to take it from him to recycle, but Mike resisted. He tried to tell Mark B that he wasn't finished with the bottle- he was going to refill it later. Because he, too, is environmentally conscious. And also cheap. A battle of wills ensued. Mike eventually prevailed. I think.

In the end it really doesn't matter who won. I just wanted to tell you all about Mark B. And sing the Opposite Song. "I go up! (UP!) And you go down! (DOWN!) I travel in a straight line, you round and round! (ROUND AND ROUND!)"

*As found on Sesame Street: Born to Add. You can hear a snippet here.