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Six Flags Park Receives Garbage Can

New Six Flags chief executive Mark Shapiro has been busy in his new job, touring amusement park facilities and instigating new policies for the chain. Shapiro has promised to make Six Flags parks decidedly more clean, beautiful, and friendly than they have been in recent years, though there have been suspicions in the amusement industry that his pronouncements are nothing more than an attempt to gain some much-needed good publicity, and that Six Flags parks will actually remain the vermin-infested hellholes that they currently are.

Shapiro silenced his critics today with a bold step that showed his new strategy was for real: he purchased a garbage can for Six Flags Elitch Gardens.

"It's our very first one ever," said the park's general manager Kathy Duquesne. "It was so beautiful when it was installed, it practically glowed. This major new installation reconfirms that Six Flags is determined to make our park the centerpiece of its holdings and a flagship property."

Employees of the park were initially confused with the strange new metallic bin when it was placed in front of them. Several poked at it confusedly, scratched themselves, or hooted lightly, while one eventually tried to crawl into it, apparently thinking it was a new form of ticket booth. Shapiro himself, with his trademark can-do spirit, demonstrated to the group how to put plastic bags inside the can and then showed them how nice trash looked when it was placed in the receptacle instead of thrown on the ground.

"I've never seen anything like it," said park manager Bailey Hutchins, 25. "What won't they think of next? That garbage can thingie is going to revolutionize the theme park industry. The only problem for me is that I work at the very back of the park and this new-fangled 'garbage can' will be near the front gate, so I guess I'll have to save up my trash and carry it over there a couple times a day."

Shapiro stated that, if the experiment of purchasing a garbage can for Elitch Gardens led to substantial improvement in sanitation and guest happiness, than one would be added to as many as five or six other Six Flags properties by the end of this season.

Other trial-run improvements Shapiro intends to implement include hiring a guy to clean the Six Flags New England restrooms once per week, running no fewer than 30% of the rides at Six Flags Great Adventure on any given day, and hiring one customer service representative without a history of violent crime for Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. Should any of these measures prove beneficial, other parks may soon see similar improvements.

--JCK