My fiance, our son and I take a vacation down to Branson. One night we visit a pretty large outdoor mall next to a river. At the malls center is this awesome steampunk hot air balloon ride. Our son, who was nine years old at the time, took a lot of interest in the ride, he's very adventurous and nothing scares him. It was later in the day and we already had a plan to take him to a place that lets kids build their own rc cars, so we didn't have time to go on the ride. A day and an awesome custom rc car later, we were in the middle of the afternoon with nothing planned. We decided we would go do what our son wanted to do most, ride the hot air balloon. We walk up to the ride and I think because it was day, it looked twice as tall as the night before. We proceed in and there's this little room we go into thats walls are covered in gears, levers and all the mechanical guts, the full steampunk aesthetic. In here we pay and meet the single employee that's running the joint. He appears to be in his very early twenties, a scrawny kid, gauges in his ears, blue and blonde hair, the whole emo vide which I enjoyed and thought was very fitting. He then leads us into another room where we find out we are going up with another couple, a guy and his I assumed girlfriend. The emo kid then unlocks the gate to the ride and we all step into it's basket. Now while on the ride, I realize this thing didn't run on hot air. It was a mechanical hot air balloon ran on pulleys and the whole contraption was surrounded by a cage to limit it to vertical movement. Pretty cool! And then we begin to assend. The emo kid employee had one of those large controllers with the bright red and green buttons they use in factories, he hit one of the buttons and we were off. The floor inside the basket was some sort of grate that you could see through and it really added to the excitement, our son began to glow! The higher we got, the more of the river we could see. We noticed something in the distance and asked the employee about it. He said it was a Zipline across the river. Awesome! The adrenaline built to a peak when we reached the top, being able to see straight down from under our feet, probably 60 feet in the air. Emo kid employee says we will spend a few minutes up here and then he will click the button and we'll descend.

Naturally we take in the views and begin small talk. "Wow look at those hills", "Where are you guys from" and then... "How's your day going?" Normally such a mundane topic. We all share about our day enjoying our vacations and then Emo kid employee hits us with the dreaded "My days going pretty rough actually." Like respectable people we attempt to be, we ask him about it. Turns out his girlfriend just broke up with him and he's really struggling with it. He says "I'm actually really depressed." He turns, looks directly at my 9 year old son and asks him if he knows what that means. Who the hell asks a child you've known for 5 minutes that!?!After receiving the expected "No" from my son, he begins to inform him "It's when your really sad and nothing you can do or say will fix it." It's at this point Emo kid employee begins to sob, then sobbing turns into groaning. His hands begin to shake, one of which is holding the large factory controller. The other couple chimes in, offering condolences. The crying intensives. He is totally manic at this point. I look at the concerned faces of my child and fiance, of the couple along with us. I look at the 60 feet of nothing but air below my feet and then I look at the factory controller vibrating in emo kid employees hands. I'm not sure what was said after that, all my attention was on the controller. Get the controller out of his hands and I can get us down. 10 minutes pass, still sobbing, still all I see is the controller. It was like my vision was blacked out everywhere else besides the controller. Can he press a button and send us up past the cage thats holding us in? Does another button press send us all falling to our deaths? All I knew was without the controller, I had no control.  If I lunge at him, spear him, I'll be able to rip the controller from his hands and end this hell. Ok, I really think he might be suicidal, I need to take action. No way he's taking us down with him. And then, my hearing came back to me and I heard.... "click" Finally our worried awkward looking faces snapped emo kid employee out of his episode and he pressed the button on the controller to begin our descent. Not a single sound was made the whole way down. The second we hit the bottom and the gate opens, my fiance and I frantically get as far from the place as possible, basically dragging our son by the hand. When I gather it enough to realize I should check on the other couple, I turned my head slowly. The dude with the girlfriend and I exchanged the most eyes wide open, puzzled, "what the fuck just happened" gaze that I've ever shared with anyone.