Overly Involved Parents Beware! Never Trust a Cafeteria Reuben Sandwich Before Crawling into a Sensory Deprivation Attraction

A few weeks ago, I passed a sign for the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City. A flashback from 15 years earlier clutched me. I broke into a cold sweat, my innards gurgled. I was reliving a horrible misjudgment in fast food choices and sensory deprivation that feeds my educational destination phobia to this day.

On the day of the incident, my family arrived at the Liberty Science Center around noon, so we had lunch in the cafeteria. The selection was the standard drab fare, except for the Rueben sandwiches under some heat lamps. I’ve always been a sucker for a good Rueben, so I grabbed what I thought would be a NYC culinary delight. 

After paying the equivalent of a mortgage payment for our meals, I opened my sandwich and saw it was a bit old and on the dry side. Disappointed, I slathered the thing in complimentary Thousand Island Dressing. My lunch tasted a little off, but I figured it was the overly generous dressing. I then finished my disappointing meal with a large cup of Starbucks coffee.

With my belly full, and the caffeine kicking my digestive system into overdrive, my boys, ages 11, 8 and 5, begged me to join them in the “Touch Tunnel” exhibit. I figured I could score a few “cool dad points,” so I agreed.

The Touch Tunnel is a modular maze, about three feet tall and wide, that you navigate in total darkness. It’s like a long string of refrigerator boxes lined up end to end, at awkward angles. Since you have to traverse this 80-foot-long obstacle in total darkness, you have to rely on your sense of touch to guide you.

Waiting in line, I checked the safety precautions. They had infrared cameras and microphones monitoring the tunnel, and I was told an attendant could open a “bail out door” if trouble arose. That calmed my nerves, for my sons’ sake, of course.

Our turn came. My two oldest sons, Pete and Tim, led the way, followed by Dan and me. As we progressed in total blackness, Dan got scared. I calmed him.  The air became thick and rancid while my half-digested Rueben, and complimentary Thousand Island dressing, began a gymnastics routine.

After another two minutes of shuffling, Dan panicked. That gave me an adrenaline burst which made my lunch’s routine go into hyperdrive, like Simone Biles on 4x speed. A cold sweat swept over me. My stomach tumbled violently.

Dan told me he was scared; I was bordering on berserk. I accelerated my guiding, well, more like shoving, Dan through a space a Keebler elf would find confining.

Bending and breathing that suffocating air turned my cold sweat into extreme nausea. The tunnel may have only been 100 feet, but it felt like I had touched my way to Boston. With no exit in sight, I sucked up my pride and called out.

“Excuse me, can you hear me?”

No answer. I tried again, “Can you hear me?”

Still no luck. I tried one last time while searching for a bailout handle, “CAN YOU HEAR ME? I NEED TO GET OUT!”

No answer. My head was spinning, mouth watering. I was reaching to untie my sneakers, the only receptacle available for the inevitable, when Pete and Tim yelled the exit was only 20 feet away.

With Dan under one arm, I scurried up, down and around in darkness at my best forward speed. After 10 seconds of frantic scurrying, I saw the most beautiful beam of light. I dove for it and rolled out into a busy museum hallway with my son.

Families stopped and stared. I slowly stood and braved the calmest face a terrorized, oxygen-deprived man battling a rogue cured meat product could muster. All eyes followed my movement. I walked away like a wobbly drunk and glanced at the teenage attendants behind those high-tech infrared screens. They averted their eyes with a guilty smirk.

My sons’ mortified faces told me I was well into negative territory for cool dad points.

I wonder if that stupid thing really had bail out doors.  

#humo