Real life happens

LOOK WHAT I FOUND! An unpublished blog post from a month into dating Josh. This is cool to see... Time to finish and publish this bad boy...

Oy, the things I’ve done and seen, and it’s not even July yet.  Let’s start at the beginning (stranded in Kentucky). 

We had been on the road about six hours, and in spite of taking a wrong turn in Louisville, we were making good time. We drove so fast that the lack of air conditioning in the Zambezi Zelda Fitzgerald didn’t matter. We blasted the 1940’s novelty hits as we went down highway 75.  Even sister was singing along—huge deal. 

Then I felt Zelda buck.  This wasn’t the typical, “No, I’m not enjoying this all that much. Go to White Castle or something instead of driving so long,” buck.  This was a, “Oh, you want to keep driving? Absolutely not.  See that hill?  We’re going down it.  Hang on, Skip!” buck.  I heard something crunch, and I watched the RPMs go from 2 to 5.  Zelda was down for the count.  We pulled over, called a tow truck, and sat motionless at the bottom of the hill.

True to form, I texted everyone who would care that I wasn’t dead.  This list included the readership of this blog (whose numbers weren’t deleted when my phone died), Matt Vernon, Bethany Lee, my four Disney chicas, and my future roommates (Benton and Josh).

Benton, who I had known since 2008, was MIA. Josh, the guy I had never met who just kind of accepted me as the girl who'd live on his couch, was the one who bothered texting to make sure I was all right. 

The next day, no response from Benton, but I got a phone call from Josh. I don't talk, mind you, I text, so I was nervous... in spite of that, we had a 36 minute phone call talking about work, animals, adventures, a party goat (...? I didn't know what it was, but, hey, he sounded nice...), Indiana Jones... Things were going way too well, so I ended up saying g'bye and going back to the hotel room.

"So... did you have fun?" Ma asked.

"Actually, yeah. He seems really nice."

My mom smiled and said, "And that's how I met your mother..." I laughed a little, but the concept was horrifying. There was no way that I just talked to someone I'd ever end up with. I was on hiatus...kinda... ok, so I really wanted something to happen with this guy, and if it was that obvious to my mother after one-- count em, ONE phone call that I was really into this guy, there was no way I was going to make it through the week I would be living with him and Benton-- whoa! When did that happen? Not Benton and Josh, Josh and Benton! This was bad. And I found myself getting excited to meet this guy who I knew I'd have no chance with. All the same, the rest of the drive was spent listening to Frank Sinatra and thinking about how beautiful life was.

Long story short, I moved in with Josh and Benton and spent the day hanging out with Josh. Sure nuff, he was even more fun in person. I started getting excited for every excuse to see him. And that was tough business. I worked nights at the Jungle Cruise. He worked mornings feeding the animals at Animal Kingdom and EPCOT. So somewhere between 2am and 4am every day, we decided to start dating.


It's present day me again. We still listen to Frank Sinatra all the time. We're still animal nerds. Indiana Jones is still one of the best movies ever. We've changed jobs, gotten engaged, we've both had to get new cars. Life gets weird sometimes. But it's amazing to see that no matter how much has changed, deep down, we've always known where things were going.

Wedding Planning = Everybody's Favorite

That title is a lie, by the way. We've been engaged a good two years. That's two years of planning. Working on color schemes, guest lists, budgets, and time lines. For someone who loves sticking to a semi-regular schedule, two years seems like a long time.

I found out recently that Colorado has a neat little wedding law that we'd decided to use to our advantage. It's called self-solemnizing or a Quaker wedding. Basically, we can perform the entire ceremony ourselves. Considering how broke we are and that neither of us have an officiant in mind, I'm pretty excited about it... that, and deep down baby me always wanted to have a wedding like in Brigadoon.

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, near the end of the movie, two characters get married. The town's pastor had given his life in exchange for Brigadoon to disappear and reappear once every hundred years. There is no one to officiate the wedding, so the two characters say, "I will love you until I die," and then there's a dance number. Let's be honest-- who wouldn't want a dance number at her wedding? Granted, we haven't had that conversation yet...

That's the plan, anyway. A while later we'll go to Indiana for a family and friend shindig, and all bases will be covered. Finally. And who knows, maybe we'll get a dance number going.

Packing and posting...

I just finished packing to go to Colorado on March 7^th. It seems like I haven’t even unpacked from moving to Florida yet (partially because I haven’t). Packing always depresses me a little because I’m so good at it. I know so many women my age who go somewhere for a week and bring an entire wardrobe, but from packing up and moving for a season every year since 2008, I’ve figured out what can stay and what has to come with me. I even have space left over in my little red suitcase.

I’m not sure what’s got me depressed this go-round. Maybe it’s how I’m listening to Wicked and missing Jen, Tia, Sara, Bethany, Suzie, and Jamie so much that I want to cry. Maybe it’s the moderately unsettling thought that so many of my friends are getting married soon. Maybe it’s the stress of seeing my mom and sister for the first time since I moved (I wish that wasn’t so stressful, but let’s face it, it’s going to be). Maybe it’s knowing that this trip to meet Josh’s family is a bigger deal than I’d want to admit because then I’d be saying something “that counts.”

It’s not like I haven’t met boyfriends’ parents before. When I met Mitch’s family, I wasn’t dating him so it wasn’t a big deal once we did start dating.

When I met the Hope ex’s parents, he hadn’t told them he had broken up with his last girlfriend, so they just kept asking me questions like, “What’s the population of your town?”, “How do you feel about illegal immigration?” etc. In fact, the only interesting thing they had to say to me was, “Have you ever thought of going to Africa?” Well, yes I have, ma’am. More than I think about most things, actually. But it’s not that you’d care because you aren’t invested in me at all.

When I met Gui’s family, it was a simple matter of not speaking enough Spanish to talk to his mom, having his little brother take advantage of the culturally accepted kiss on the cheek when saying hello and good bye, and realizing that I really wasn’t comfortable with the situation at all.

Honorable mentions go to Much Ado co-star Justin’s mom:

Her: It’s really weird to see you kiss my son every night. I don’t even know your name.

Me: Nice to meet you. My name’s Elyse.

And the PK’s Pastor Father:

Him: Now that you’re in your first semester of college, have you met Mr. Right?

Me: Heavens no, but I’ve met plenty of Mr. Good-Enough-for-Right-Nows.

Him: Oh…?

So really, the difference is that I’m meeting people who are actually going to matter in the long run. I knew this was going to happen eventually, but here it is staring me in the face. While I was packing and trying to figure out if I could ever own enough blue, green, and black shirts to finally get to a point where I could stop buying blue, green, and black shirts, I couldn’t help but try to remember how I got to this point.

May 30, 2011, stranded in Kentucky. My mom, sister, and I had been on the road about six hours, and in spite of taking a wrong turn in Louisville, we were making good time. We drove so fast that the lack of air conditioning in the Zambezi Zelda Fitzgerald didn’t matter. We blasted the 1940’s novelty hits as we went down highway 75. My sister was singing along—huge deal. 

Then I felt Zelda buck. This wasn’t the typical, “No, I’m not enjoying this all that much. Go to White Castle or something instead of driving so long,” buck. This was a, “Oh, you want to keep driving? Absolutely not. See that hill? We’re going down it. Hang on, Skip!” buck. I heard something crunch, and I watched the RPMs go from 2 to 5. Zelda was down for the count. We pulled over, called a tow truck, and sat motionless at the bottom of the hill for 2 hours before finally being towed to a hotel.

May 31, first time hearing Josh’s voice over the phone. Josh called me after he got off of work that day. No pretense, no hidden motives, he just wanted to make sure I was all right and that I was keeping my spirits up as much as possible. I’ll admit I already had a crush on my future roommate at the time, so the 36 minute phone call had me geeking out more than I hoped he could hear so many states away. Any sort of crush I had on him was amplified after that.

He told me a few weeks ago that he could hear me smiling over the phone. I guess he was well on his way to knowing me way too well even then.

June 3, meeting Josh. There he was in his pajamas at the front door. I was wearing a white sundress because it’s the only thing I own that’s ever warranted a “two syllable damn.” I was expecting to only be living there for a few weeks, so I had to make some sort of impression, right? Even if something wasn’t going to happen that summer, I wanted to at least leave the option open eventually. The first thing I noticed in person was his ears. Then the shape of his face. Then his eyes. Then his voice. We spent the rest of the time that he was awake at Hollywood Studios riding Star Tours and getting backstory. I had an idea how much I was going to like him when I actually had the chance to meet him, but this was ridiculous. I couldn’t find a single reason not to like him more—believe me, I tried. I absolutely hated long distance. I didn’t want to get attached to a guy I had just met. But after one day of hanging out with Josh, the damage was done. He just kept getting more perfect.

June 4-June 30, the month that everything happened. There’s no better way to describe it. Everything happened from me telling my mom I was going to marry him eventually and learning that there was someone else out there who liked Muppet Treasure Island as much as I do to eating whole chickens with our bare hands to our first “I love you”s. Things go faster when your introduction to somebody is being his/her roommate, but in retrospect, it really wasn’t as fast as it seems.

I had been told once that the first 3 months of the relationship define the rest of the relationship, so I figured that if I wanted this to go anywhere, I had to stay put. Heading back to Indiana could wait—indefinitely were it not for that whole graduation thing. By July, I figured out that I could finagle graduation into a semester, and boy howdy, it was worth it. Knowing that we would only be away from each other for a semester and having 3 months worth of memories under our belts made it that much easier to give long distance a chance.

January 4, 2012, starting the big drive down to Florida with Josh. We had done the impossible. Not only had long distance worked, but we had learned how to count on each other way more than we even had over the summer. It seemed like things had kind of come full circle. The last time when I was making this drive, I was heading to meet Josh, but this time, it felt like driving off towards the rest of my life. Some grand moment of cathartic solipsism after being away from each other so long.

Before you think that I rearranged my life to be closer to some guy I only knew for 3 months, don’t worry. Part of what made everything seem so perfect was how easily everything fell into place. He instinctively knew to quote my favorite play while putting boots on. He made me omelets without knowing that that’s my favorite way to have eggs. Instead of being weirded out by how I can picture punctuation in my head, he gave punctuation marks a sound (which I brought back to school with me, much to the joy and delight of my coworkers at the Writing Center). We don’t fight; we talk it out. He promised to be my best friend and hasn’t let me down once. He helped give my dreams for my future a form and function—and he added rhinos. He made dating over the phone easy. He’s the only person who gets to play with my hair or hold me while I cry. We just fit. 10 months later, nothing about it is disappointing. It sounds cliché, but it really is getting better all the time.

Am I nervous? Sure. Who wouldn’t be? Am I going to do something embarrassing? Of course; that’s part of the fun of it. This is just the next part of the adventure, packing to meet his family and all. After thinking about it, I’m not so depressed about packing. I’m good at it, after all. I’ve got most of this covered already. The big stuff like realizing how important Josh is to me is long since taken care of. Everything else is going to fall into place just as easily. I guess it’s just strange knowing how much this trip and packing matters this time. This is an instance where, once again, I can tell that I’m barreling head first towards the rest of my life. Here goes nothing. Wish me luck!

Some blog posts are written just to assess some things. This is one of those posts. (back order circa December 16th)

Any time I am faced with some sort of grand transition in my life, I can't help but try to take stock of where I've been and what I've done. The last time I really had to worry about this was last summer before I went to Florida. It was almost shocking to look at everything that had happened in recent years and realize that by age 21, I had done everything I had ever wanted to do.

-          Work in Disney World, check!

I've been working there since 2008, so that was nothing new. I drive a boat around in circles, tell bad jokes, wear a lot of khaki, and make magic for other people. This is also a cop-out way to get the sub-goal of professional comedian out of the way. After all, being a professional anything means you’re paid to do it.

-          Play Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, check!

Since that had been a goal since 1993 or so, the audition went off without a hitch. On the way to the audition, I had car trouble on the toll road, I had a phone fight with an ex (get poisonous influences out of my life, check!), and narrowly avoided a panic attack. It helped with the method acting portion, I guess. When I finally arrived at the audition, I took out my piece of paper with my scrawled out monologue and read with all of the oomph that I had used when I practiced in my bedroom when I was home alone. I had never been so relieved to say the words, “I would eat his heart in the marketplace” in my life. I'm pretty sure that people down the hall heard how much I wanted to kill Claudio, and they trembled in terror (at least that's what I'd like to think happened. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it). After the fiver performances, however, there was a nice, big void the size of one of Benedick's monologues. Awesome.

-           Go to Europe, check!

I spent spring break in Germany and France my sophomore year of high school. I kept a running tally of all the hot guys I saw (it's probably in my closet somewhere), geeked out over the history and culture (but mostly the bread... foodies on vacation. It's an issue). The best part, however, was probably going to Euro Disney and having some French teenagers flash the camera during the picture on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Needless to say, my mom wanted to buy the picture, but the nice man behind the counter said it was filthy and too stereotypically French.

-          Have something published, check!

I wrote a crappy poem about my dog once, sent it in to some magazine, and it was published. I actually got $35 for it. The fun thing about that story is that the poem was written in Spanish (Spanish rhymes easier than English). I wasn’t published again until the writing contest at school last semester. That time, it was actually in English. It wasn’t a big publication, sure, but again, the qualification for tacking the word professional onto anything is getting money for it.

-          Live like the Boxcar Children, check!

Who wouldn’t want to live like one of the Boxcar Children? After everything went wrong on my first day back in six months, I got to be homeless in Disney World for a month. I learned how to couch surf if I wanted some sort of bed, find electrical outlets when I needed them, and take showers on Disney property where I wouldn’t be bothered (you’d be shocked at how important it is to shower in peace. There are some places on Disney property where I would never shower.). I learned how to live on $20 a week, how to sneak slushies to cast members, how to use public transportation, how to never wait in lines, and how to never pay for drinks (magical Disney resort mugs and complimentary water. Those are the real best kept secrets in Disney World. You don’t see signs advertising mugs and free water, do you? Absolutely not.)… Granted, I didn’t actually have a boxcar. I didn’t have any siblings with me. I didn’t have a blue cup, and I never solved any mysteries. All the same, it was definitely one of the most epic things I’ve ever done.

When I started writing this, I had to wonder if I really had everything done. It seemed too easy. After realizing that I only had about five goals to speak of, I figured it was time to look through old photo albums and see if there was anything I had missed.

There were plenty of pictures of me growing up in Disney World and even of me excitedly waiting in line for the Jungle Cruise. There weren’t any pictures of me putting on a production of Much Ado about Nothing with my Barbies, but it is safe for everyone to assume that it actually happened. There were certainly pictures from Germany and France. Me staring at Notre Dame from my seat on a tour bus, my family and our exchange student eating breakfast in Germany, a rooster wandering around Euro Disney

—also, this is neither here nor there, but I had an epiphany! Maybe Euro Disney has chickens the way Disney World has ducks! And maybe Disneyland—since it’s in California where The Birds takes place—has crows and sea gulls. Eew... Meanwhile, back in my photo books…

There was, however, a huge part of my life that I had forgotten to include somewhere in my list of life’s ambitions: dinosaurs. There were pictures of me and dinosaur-related things all over the place. How did I forget when they covered my nursery walls, helped me understand the importance of family and tree stars, and taught me everything I knew about frog DNA? Once upon a time, I was going to find a dinosaur egg some place, incubate it, and have my very own dinosaur. If that didn’t work, then at least I would find a fossil one day. I guess there are some things that I left out. It seems a little silly now, but now that I have realized that there’s something that important that was skipped entirely, I have to fix it!

Unfortunately, seeing Sue at the Field Museum doesn’t really count as finding a dinosaur fossil. I’m going to have to take care of that at some point.

I also wanted to own a coffee shop at some point. I haven’t done that either, but by this point, I don’t really want to. My sister wants to open a vegan restaurant, and that will have to be the fruition of that dream for everybody.

I wanted to be a zookeeper back in the day, too. I wanted to be the person who took care of the big cats, stood by the enclosures answering people’s questions, watching to make sure kids didn’t run into cages (running into an animal enclosure, check! The buffaloes at the zoo did not enjoy that as much as I did.). Saying I live at a zoo right now is a bit of a stretch, but it’s been enough to make me feel like I haven’t failed at that one. While most of our family pets can be classified as farm animals, things like ferrets, a hedgehog, a parrot, hermit crabs, my tiny domesticated bob cat mix it up enough that I can fudge the data and call it a zoo.

On the other hand, there were things I did in addition to the goals I forgot to mention. I still have six months experience as a Mr. Manager. For those of you who don’t get the Arrested Development reference, that means I get to be a manager of something but only nominally. On my last day of being Mr. Manager of the Writing Center on campus, I was inches away from saying, “Squaw no gettum firewood; Squaw go home!” But since it was my last day, what would I have gained? I’ll take the six months management experience.

I’ve traveled back and forth in time (yeah, but that’s only between time zones). I’ve tried my hand at event planning. I’ve been somebody’s imaginary friend (when all the influence you really have is through text messages, you may as well be an imaginary friend. It makes enough sense to me). I’ve figured out what happy relationships look like. In case you were wondering, happy relationships don’t involve secretly hoping for the other person to die. That is actually the exact opposite of a happy relationship. I guess I still have a ways to go before I get everything done, but the list of what I have done and where I’ve been will just get longer. I can be content knowing I’ve done more than most people my age and also knowing I don’t intend to stop and let everyone else catch up. I’ll figure it out as I go, I suppose; there isn’t much else I can do.

Musings over cookies...

I have 57 cookies in a red food container waiting to be sent to Florida.  I may have spent a little too much time baking cookies tonight, and I had to blog as a result.  Something about the sense of smell sends memories flooding back.  Combine that with any of the other senses, and you’re stuck with whatever memories decide to show up.  Being the domestic that I am, I have baked a LOT of cookies in my day, so I have my fair share of cookie and baking memories.  You’d think cookies wouldn’t be blog worthy, but you’d also think that people wouldn’t get offended about comma use, and here I am. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…  After baking 24 chocolate chip cookies, I moved on to snickerdoodles.  I made them from a mix rather than cheating (as much) with frozen dough.  Stirring was not going as planned, so I thought back to when I made snickerdoodles in the basement of Dykstra dorm with a girl named Alyssa.  I can’t remember who got frustrated with the dough first, but I was the one who ended up smooshing the dough with my hands.  I also ended up brandishing butter at somebody and picking things up with my toes…? Normal.

That evening, our boyfriends showed up to eat the cookies.  The Hope ex loved snickerdoodles, so he was very excited to eat them.  He bit into a cookie and put it back down quickly.

Zac: What did you do to them?

Me: I baked them…  From scratch, actually.

Zac: Well, I knew that much.  You can taste the difference between real cookies and fake ones. (*Note: I bet he was one of those who you could give a water bottle to where the water’s been poured out and  refilled with tap water, and he would brag about knowing the difference between bottled and tap water.*)  How did you put the cookie on the cookie sheet?

Me: I rolled the dough into walnut-sized balls—

Zac: So far, so good.

Me: –and then I squashed them with my thumb because I didn’t know how they would spread out.

Zac:  Oh.  That’s where you went wrong.

Me: That’s where I went wrong?  Anything else?

Zac: No.  Next time you’ll hopefully do better.

In retrospect, I should have slept with his roommate.  I’m kidding.  I just didn’t bake him cookies ever again.  I stuck with baking for people who actually appreciated it.  I mean, not a big song and dance about cookies, but still.

There were lots of people on my College Program who got cookies.  I had a bigger apartment than most, so many of the Skipper Movie Nights were at my place.  Much of the food ended up being my doing as well.  When you make the time to do entertain on a small scale, it doesn’t take much work to put on a nice shirt, pour spinach dip into rye bread, whip up bean dip, make worms and dirt, cover something in chocolate, and have Frank Sinatra playing in the background by the time people show up.  My ex Gui had seen me host or co-host parties all the time (what he probably didn’t realize was that the only thing to stress me out when he was around was him). 

When we both found ourselves in the Midwest, I realized that the only things that actually held us together were working for Disney and not seeing each other every day.  He’d call every day so I could entertain him over the phone.  He refused to make friends in Detroit.  He’d always say I was the reason why he moved there, so I had to show some gratitude.  Spring of 2010, phone calls were a matter of, “Hello, Tiny, did you do anything today?  Make it live!  …that sounds boring… Want to hear about my day?  I actually did something important.”  He’d call the house if I didn’t answer [When I lived with Wayne two summers ago, he did NOT have that house number.  I could go out and leave my phone off.  It was amazing (How did I find these people?!)].  By that time, I didn’t make cookies specifically for Guillermo.  I only made cookies if someone from my College Program came over.

Before I left for Disney that summer, I made Mickey shaped rice crispy treats, put them on a stick, and dipped them in chocolate for my 60’s Lit class.  On the way to school that evening, Gui called.  Granted, it was about a week after I called off the wedding, so he was quite angry with me.  It wasn’t the beginning of the end, really, just a continuation of it.

Me: Can I call you during my break tonight?  I’m running a little late because I was baking, so I’m frazzled.

Gui: You were baking?  For who?

Me: My 60’s class.  Since I am leaving tomorrow, I’m missing the final.  Holt let me take it early.  I made Mickey rice crispy treats like they have in the parks for him, but I couldn’t just make them for him... so I made about 15…?

I could hear him huffing over the phone.

Gui:  I don’t know why you bother.  Are you at least getting paid for this?!

Me:  No.  It’s a gift.  You don’t ask for things in exchange for gifts.

Gui:  I know what a gift is!  I’m not an idiot… I just don’t see why you should just bake for people!

Me:  Because it’s nice, and I’m leaving tomorrow!

I had to hang up after that.  He didn’t see why I should bake for people?  I didn’t understand why I shouldn’t bake for people. If you ask me, I think it’s a nice way to show people that they matter.  The subtext when it comes to baking is that somebody matters, somebody is loved, and somebody is cared about.  It’s simply a nicety.  Instead of not baking anymore, I just stopped telling Gui if I was baking…or anything, really.

By this point, people don’t seem to be offended by me baking cookies.  My cookies don’t come with hidden agendas, and I am not fishing for compliments (even if the first anecdote doesn’t sound that way), so I bake when I get the chance or make the time for it.  While I was baking this evening and these memories popped into my head, I couldn’t help but think about how much I love the smell of freshly baked cookies.  For a moment, I thought, “It doesn’t get much better than that.”  I had to shake my head at myself—I’m shaking my head again, folks, because I’m about to gush. 

There is most certainly something better than the smell of freshly baked cookies.  Tonight I made cookies for my boyfriend Josh, and after 6 months with him, I can honestly say that being myself and happy with somebody else beats the smell of freshly baked cookies.  No contest.  And as silly as it sounds, not having to worry about failing at snickerdoodles or being chastised for baking for a class is also a heck of a lot better than the smell of freshly baked cookies.  But perhaps my favorite part is that my boyfriend deserves all the freshly baked cookies I can send his way.  I think that may be what makes the difference.

For your reading entertainment while I write a bunch more of overdue posts...

I wrote this last year for a class with Sarah White.  It was something I wrote that I actually kind of liked and that other people liked too, so I figured I’d cheat the system, revise it a bit, and hand it in to another class this semester.  Frankly, writing about things that happened last summer would have turned into a hot mess or a personal my boyfriend-is-awesome-fest (which has a tendency to annoy other students), so I went with this.  It needs more revisions, but what doesn't?  While I write more to clear my head, I’ll let you read the revised version of this.

Note: the best notes I got back on the copies I handed out were, “I love your lists!” (I got several of those) and “What this really needs is SEX!!!”

After working in Disney World for four years, the magic starts to run thin.  When you’re going to Disney with your parents who are going through a divorce after years of my mother putting up with my father’s abuses, the magic is pretty much nonexistent.  At any rate, I was less than enthusiastic about the whole vacation at my workplace thing.  I knew it was going to be hard to muster excitement about much of anything this trip.

It was going to be even worse since it takes something major to make me excited about Disney World like guests do.  Disney World guests get excited for seemingly no reason at times.  Most recently, my mom started praising Disney World Imagineers for making the sand cold when it touched her foot.  That’s the kind of magic that just makes me smile and nod.  In spite of, or maybe because of, all of the Disney magic, it was hard for me not to get skeptical.  When you’re a cast member, you quickly learn a few things:

1.      Guests turn their brains off when they go to Disney World.

Example:  I am a Jungle Cruise Skipper.  That means my job in Disney World, in layman’s terms, is to drive around in a boat and tell bad jokes to people (spieling).  One time, while I was spieling in a rain storm, I was running out of jokes for filler material.  I asked, “Are there any questions?”  A woman raised her hand and asked—in all seriousness, mind you, “Why is it raining?”  I was a little confused, so I asked if she could expand on that.  She rolled her eyes at me.  “You know, the rain?  Here on the Jungle Cruise?  Why is it raining?”  I blinked and answered, “Well, ma’am, I think the clouds got a little too heavy for the water that they were carrying.”

“Well,” she said, “it’s your fault.”

2.      The “three o’clock parade” is a ridiculously difficult concept to grasp.

Example:  The day parade starts at 3:00 pm on Main Street, USA, in the Magic Kingdom.  People will walk up to cast members and ask, “What time is the three o’clock parade?”  (Please see point number one.)

Our answer, of course, is, “Where do you plan on watching the parade?”  That way, we stay magical while giving the guests information about when the parade will pass where they will be sitting.  It’s a nice touch, but we loathe that question.

3.      Cast members are expected, by guests, to know everything about Florida.

Example:  Our nametags include our hometown or our college.  Most of these nametags do not say anything that ends in FL.  All the same, my first week on the job, I was asked for directions to the nearest Target.  I found out later that it was about ten minutes away from the Magic Kingdom, but I had no idea at the time.  Again, not knowing that I was ten minutes away from Target when my only voyage off property was on a bus with a very specific route was my fault.

4.      Guest quickly becomes an insult.

Example:  Do I really need an example?  See 1-3.  If you are still confused as to why guest would be an insult, then sadly, the insult probably applies to you.  At best, you are on vacation in Disney and have temporarily lost your mind.  That’s the only hope I have for you.

5.      Disney ducks are a lot smarter than guests.

Example:  This is probably my favorite of the rules since it’s actually something positive.  Because guests are stupid, they think that “those poor ducks” don’t have a place to live.  Or better yet, “these poor ducks” don’t get enough food.  Those poor ducks get food from one out of every four guests.  That is only including the guests who feed the ducks in spite of the ample signage that reminds guests not to feed the ducks.

Now, think of all of the kids who drop their popcorn.  If the custodial cast members don’t get to it fast enough (which, considering all of the puking—I’m sorry, protein spilling, kids all over the parks, could happen), the ducks are more than happy to help clean up the popcorn.

In addition to this, ducks don’t talk back, they’re easy going, they have full reign of the parks, and they stop traffic.  Because of this, cast members like ducks.  We have several families of Jungle ducks, and any who come near the break tent are more than welcome.  I am so fond of the Jungle ducks that every duck I have owned has been named after something Jungle Cruise related simply to keep my connection to those clever ducks.  It also doesn’t hurt that my ducks, knowing where their names came from, will try to live up to my expectations.  Even outside of Disney, ducks don’t disappoint.    

As a seasoned skipper, and, therefore, an expert in snark, I took these truths to heart, and nothing was going to change my mind.  Granted, guests see Disney as a magical place, but for cast members, you are the other side of the magic.  You get your Disney jollies from watching the guests and from being with other cast members who get the fact that without you, there is no magic.  So, dammit, be magical.  It’s a lot of pressure—especially when you’re stuck catering to people who can’t get the idea of a three o’clock parade taking place, promptly and efficiently, at three o’clock pm.

The magical family journey of magical awkwardness and magically uncomfortable situations began at 4:30 am central time—again, magical.  I was a little less than pleased when I heard that one of my sister Elaine’s punky high school friends would be going on our already hectic and awkward family vacation to Disney World.  Little did I know that this girl, Caite, would remind me how magical my place of employment really is.

Her enthusiasm was obvious.  This girl who had only known my family for a few hours started singing “Party in the USA” and dancing as soon as she opened her eyes.  This set the tone for the entire trip.  I stood stunned at her excitement.  A sixteen year old girl was singing and dancing to a Miley Cyrus in my living room at that ungodly hour.  My sister Elaine did not share Caite’s jour de vivre that early in the morning, let alone appreciate it, but even though Miley Cyrus can suck it, I decided to embarrass myself and sing along.

By the time we got to our hotel, Caite was still singing Miley Cyrus.  By this point, I was already in a Disney state of mind.  Everyone has a different idea of when they are “in Disney World.”  When I was younger, it was simple, clear cut.  Disney World begins when you walk through the Castle.  I’m 21 now and a no-nonsense cast member, so the confines of Disney World are still simple and clear cut, but once you are on Disney property, you are in Disney World.  No magical incantations once you see a pretty castle.  You are as much in Disney World at a food place called Earl of Sandwich as you are standing inside that castle.  But of course, first night in Disney, we went past the Magic Kingdom.  My family and Caite got on a bus headed for the park, and got to a part of the road where you can see parts of the park nearby.  I looked at the hotel on my right—Bay Lake Tower, the resort that they started working on when I first started working in Disney.  It looks clean with straight lines.  Strictly business.  It’s been a part of Disney as long as I have, so it’s a landmark I bother to look at.

I heard a sudden gasp across the bus.  Sure enough, it was Caite, and she had just seen the Castle for the first time.  The gasp quickly turned into mini sobs, and she ran to my side of the moving bus.  I felt her arms around my neck and her tears on my cheek.

“It’s so beautiful,” she said.  I looked at the Castle, lit up in its Christmas glory, and, for the first time in a long time, it actually looked like something worthwhile. 

“It sure is,” I said.

            For Caite, the magic was in the moment.  The magic was in the fact that she had a beautiful opportunity to see a place that so many people love and dream of.  The magic was in the experience.  For me, the magic was is Caite’s infectious excitement because of something that had long since become meaningless, something that had become a bad cliché.  I guess sometimes seeing someone geeking out over magic can cancel out the guest-li-ness.  The magic was in her gratitude for everything Disney that had just landed in her lap.  I felt my eyes well up, and I repeated, “It sure is.”