Riding the Saga at Busch Gardens

Toward the end of Josh and Jared's senior year, their Thespian troupe went to Tampa for the annual state festival. On the last day of the trip, the school took everyone to Busch Gardens, the amusement park known for its many roller coasters.

At the park, the students split off into groups, where Josh and Jared found themselves walking with Freddy, his mom, Stephanie S., Jocelyn D., and others. They had the idea to make up a fake roller coaster and get the group excited to want to ride it, based only on their own hype.

Each Busch Gardens coaster's name was either derived from a Swahili word or inspired by an African animal — SheiKra, Montu, Gwazi, and Kumba, for example. The guys called their coaster the “Saga” and told everyone they absolutely had to ride it. It was so new, they said, that Busch Gardens hadn't yet updated the signage to show where it was located. But it was supposedly bigger, faster, and more thrilling than anything else at the park. Being that it was still the early days of smartphones, nobody had internet access to double-check any of their claims. They all believed the story unquestioningly.

When the group was still at the front of the park, Josh and Jared told them the Saga was toward the back. When they got to the back, they feigned that they had gotten mixed up and that it was actually toward the front. As they circled around, they kept telling the group they were almost there, that it was just a few minutes away.

At one point, Jared separated himself from the group, then came back and told everyone that he had just ridden the Saga and that it was amazing. This only reinvigorated the gullible group to keep looking for it. But of course, they never succeeded.

By the end of the day, when everybody had gone back to the hotel, Josh and Jared said they both had ended up riding the Saga a couple of times. They wouldn't stop raving about it, and of course, everybody else was disappointed and jealous. To this day, the guys don't know whether their classmates ever realized what they were doing or if they just took their word for it. There was absolutely no point to the prank other than for their own sick amusement.  ❒

---