I have been beat with a rollercoaster--repeatedly. I spent the weekend at Cedar Point amusement park and it was a fun-filled adventure, but I feel as if a train (a small train I'll grant you) has spent the last two days running back and forth over my body, just to make sure I'm dead. I have recaptured my love of rollercoasters, however.

Therefore, in honor of such a jarring, heart-stopping weekend I offer you this newest list. It's not exactly a top ten list, but it is a listing of the top ten times this weekend I thought I might die.

The Top Ten Most Intense Moments of Fear at Cedar Point:

10. Power Lunge Stairs

It was a water-slide that was more vertical than slide. I climbed a lot of wooden, shaky stairs to get to the top and while the ride itself wasn't so bad, standing on the stairs in cold weather, wet, watching the wood shake under my feet was terrifying. Things did not help when my friend pointed out that the bolts appeared sub-standard, but were actually okay. What I don't want to hear as I'm suspended hundreds of feet in the air is that the construction even appears suspect for a moment. After those stairs, how could any ride be scary?

9. Maverick

It was the first ride of the day and my first rollercoaster in years. It also has an inverted drop. Things I need to know before I ride. As we climbed up the rail I saw the first drop off and I thought where is the track? How was I to know it curled back underneath itself? How was I to know it would hold? I plunged upside down and backwards and lost my courage somewhere along the first five feet of track.

8. Snake in the Water

We stood atop the Preying Mantis waiting to board when one of the guys gleefully pointed out the water snake in the water below us. Do I have to elaborate why this is unacceptable? Now I had to worry that if the rollercoaster broke and I plunged straight down at sixty miles an hour if I did survive the fall I would also have to survive the snake. I can't plan ahead for that.

7. Raptor

The seat locked down; the man checked it. I dangled in the air climbing the track to the first plunge with my fear that the seat hadn't locked down and the concurrent fear that if I pushed to hard to check I might unlock my harness and so doom myself on accident. Granted, if my pushing on it unlocked it I was screwed anyway, but in my fear befuddled mind I couldn't think that far in advance. That's why they call such fear irrational.

6. Magnum

It didn't occur to me that climbing a very long hill, very slowly without anything on the side (no catwalk) would make the ride more frightening. Oddly enough, even though you know you are in a car on a track when you can't see said track your mind plays a horrible trick on you. It's a trick that requires all your concentration to fight lest you wet your pants.

5. Mean Streak

It's kinda mean, but very wooden. What worried me was that with as much as we shook there was no way to tell if the coaster was supposed to shake that much, or if the wood was giving out from underneath us. And, as we zoomed around and around there were wooden overhangs that looked like they were waiting to decapitate you. You know what's really mean? Wooden rollercoasters that do anything more than go up and down.

4. Demon Drop

All it does is go up and drop you. That's it. Seemed fun. Easy. Non-threatening. People in front of us were screaming as they were raised up and I mocked them. What's to scream about when you're only going up? Then we got in. The cage was grabbed by the ride and yanked upward at an alarming rate. Surprised I stifled my scream, but we kept going up, higher and higher. About that I time I realized we were going to drop most of the way back down free fall. With very little self control I started saying over and over again, "Bad idea. This was a bad idea. Bad, bad idea." It was fun, but that doesn't mean I was wrong.

3. Water Raft Slide

This ride marks the only moment actual death seemed eminent. The four of us rode one tube down the water slide and we got a lot of height on the turns. A lot of height. So much height, in fact, that it seemed as if one of our members was going to be launched either over the edge of the slide or across the tube onto another one of us. By the end of the slide we were all shaking, and one person was in the fetal position on the bottom of the tube. Truly memorable.

2. Vomit-tron

It was nicknamed the vomit-tron by those who came before me. It is an apt nickname and for awhile it was really, really fun. We swung up; we swung back. No big deal. Then we went higher than just parallel to the ground. It felt like we were going to go upside down but I knew the ride wasn't made to go upside down. All the while we were spinning to the side so your eyes told your body you were flying towards the steel supports. My senses were enraged; my heart was thudding. All signs pointed to death.

1. Seagull

How can a seagull be the most fear-inducing you ask? Simple: it dropped a five-mile stretch of seagull poop right in front of us as we were walking. There is no warning; no missile-lock to let you know you're in trouble. No sound to alert you to the danger that flies towards your head. Instead you simply see your life flash before your eyes as pounds of white bird poo fall from the sky, barely missing you to land on the pavement.

Tell me that doesn't scare you.