The Relentless March Of Time, With Dancing!

The worst part about a terrific vacation isn’t when it ends. No, the worst part comes several days after it’s over, when you’re back in the real world and wistfully remembering how much fun you were having exactly one week ago, while acknowledging just how much fun you’re not having right now. It’s the curse of a great holiday to miss it when it’s gone, yet we must remember that such passing misery is but a small price to pay for those brief annual glimpses of joy that vanish from our lives just as quickly as they came flittering into them.

It’s tempting to put our yearly excursions upon shiny golden pedestals of awe and wonder, then spend the rest of the year gazing upon their glory while trying to figure out how to get back there again, but life should never be about your next vacation. Instead, life should be made up of hundreds upon thousands upon millions of little moments that at least equal, if not surpass, any we may experience while on holiday. So yes, I had an amazing time at Walt Disney World with my new family, but even as I mourn the passing of that happy week and return to the soul-crushing mundanity and relentless monotony of the real world, I can’t help but think that real life isn’t all that bad, after all. Sure, by comparison it is bleak and repetitive and woefully predictable, but a little normalcy never hurt anybody. And, while I’m more of a fan of the weird and wicked things in life than of anything commonplace, even I can admit that it sometimes feels good to be at least a little normal. Just a little.

There are, of course, some things I will continue to miss regardless of how positive an outlook I try to have on things. Trey, for instance, will never be three years old and at Disney World again. This is a small thing, I admit, but in the larger context of my time with the little guy, it takes on a bit more significance. These past twenty or so months with Brittany and Trey have been the happiest of my life, and I’m talking a delirious sort of happiness. I realized this during the vacation, at some random moment on some random day when we were doing some random activity. I reflected on my life and where it’s been, where it’s going and where it is now, and I discovered that I am gloriously, incalculably, and overwhelmingly Tom-Cruise-jumping-on-the-couchingly happy. And, the worst part about being happy with how things are right now, is the hideous certainty that comes from knowing that right now doesn’t last forever. I’m not very good with change, especially when I like how things are. But, since I know that the persistent march of time is, well, persistent, there’s not much I can do about the future other than to simply appreciate what I have right now.

With every day that passes, Trey grows a little older and leaves a little bit more of his baby self behind. Soon, he’ll start school. Later, he’ll abandon Mickey Mouse and Thomas the train. Eventually, he’ll discover girls, grow up, move out, and start his own journey through adulthood. I don’t like to think about all that, though. Not right now, anyway. Sure, I’m excited about all of the milestones he’ll pass as he grows through life, but I’m just not looking forward to the horrible time when it’s all going to be over. I don’t want to think about him not wanting to play trains with me, or to take little trips to silly places with the family, and I especially don’t want to think about that dark and inevitable time that will come that will find us waving to him from our driveway as his car pulls away towards college and the start of his life without us in it. No. I don’t want to think about that.

Instead, let’s talk more about Disney World, shall we? One last time, before I put it to rest until we go back next year. Only, what more is there to say, really? There are anecdotes to be sure, but at what point does this blog stop being a collection of essays and starts becoming a travelogue of my vacations? Hopefully not today, and not with this essay. This is the last gasp of my Disney World bibblebabble for now, but I couldn’t shut the book without mentioning at least a couple more things.

First, there was what happened at a fountain in the Magic Kingdom. The previous day, at another fountain in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, I’d given Trey a handful of coins to toss into the water as he made various wishes. Brittany and I educated him on the ancient and absurd ritual by showing him how to throw a coin into the water as we shouted out a wish, then he followed suit by mimicking us at first, then by making up his own desires. The next day, while Brittany stepped into a shop to browse for souvenirs, Trey and I sat down next to a fountain across the way. He asked for some “monies” so that he could make more wishes, so I grabbed the camera like the obnoxious tourist and proud father I am, and handed him a coin. I started filming just as he threw the glinting metal into the frigid water and shouted, “I wish for Kris!”

For whatever reason, this simple act warmed my heart in a wholly unexpected way, so I just stupidly said, “Awesome” and asked him if he wanted to wish for something else. Again, he wished for me. Then, another coin and another wish, this time for Mama. Finally, as I handed him my last coin and asked him what he was going to wish for this time, he again said, “Mama”. It was sweet and precious and adorable, and I couldn’t imagine a more perfect child in all the world. Of course, he then drew back his arm and launched the coin towards the fountain, this time shouting, “I wish for Ma – ” before pausing for an instant and correcting himself, ” – TREY!” Laughing, he looked up at me with his innocent, yet impish eyes and said, “I wished for Trey!”
Wish me love a wishing well

Other highlights from the trip include the insane security guard who chased our car down on foot after I flagrantly skirted Disney Law by entering my resort behind the previous guest, rather than stopping to wait for the little gate to close behind him before inserting my own room key to raise it again. Then, there was the tour guide we encountered when we visited the Florida Caverns State Park on our way back home, who threatened Trey with jail time while he flirted with Brittany and kept pronouncing the word “rocks” as “wawks”. Later, there was the world’s slowest gas pump at Florida’s scariest gas station, which stole eleven minutes and thirty-seven seconds from my life as I filled the Jetta’s fourteen gallon tank with fifteen gallons of gas after the pump’s automatic shut off failed to automatically shut off. But, beyond all these things, perhaps the most significant event (as far as my parental ego is concerned, anyway) happened on our last day at Disney World.

We’d taken Trey back to Disney’s Hollywood Studios so that he could watch The Little Mermaid stage show. He’s developed a strong fondness for the movie, along with “mermaid and her friends”, so we’d hoped to buy up a few plush toys he could play with back home. We found an Ariel with no problem, then discovered a plush version of her fish friend, Flounder, with relative ease. However, when it came time to find the “friend” who is arguably Trey’s favorite among all The Little Mermaid characters, the crab Sebastian was nowhere to be found. We eventually gave up the search at the Studios, and moved our noble quest on to the shimmering souvenir mecca called Downtown Disney.

It turns out, however, that Sebastian is some sort of crustacean pariah at Walt Disney World, because we couldn’t find the blasted crab anywhere. We looked for plush. We found no plush. We looked for toys. We found no toys. We looked for keychains, we looked for pins, and we looked for antenna balls, hats, and t-shirts. We found nothing featuring the crab. We searched The World Of Disney, we pilfered through Once Upon A Toy, we even scurried down the poor man’s alleyway, where everything is under ten dollars. Nothing. Nada. Bupkis. ZIP. We eventually gave up the search altogether, and took Trey down to the Lego store to build with the free Legos and play on the little playground. Trey was running off to build a racecar when I decided to give it one more try. I asked Brittany to watch him while I went back and searched through the stores one more time, then I left in pursuit of Trey’s prize.

I finally found it, although it was more by luck than anything else. Inside the princess section of Once Upon A Toy, mounted way up on the top shelf of one area as part of a display for The Little Mermaid merchandise, I spied some sort of playset themed around the movie. I squinted my eyes and peered up through the shelves to the point of their highest altitude in the hope that I would see something red and crab-shaped. I did. Sebastian was part of this playset and, although small and plastic and not at all cuddly in a plush sort of way, I had to buy it. I went to the counter and asked the clerk if they had any of the playsets in stock, or in the back. He shook his head and gave me a firm, “No, not unless they’re in the front of the store. Go look there.” I went and looked. None were there.
I walked back to the same place, only this time there was another clerk there, a woman this time. A young girl, to be more specific, and my chances of success suddenly improved. Bypassing the accusatory stares of the previous unhelpful clerk, I walked up to the young lady and explained my predicament. I was polite, I smiled, and I did my best to come off as more than a little desperate. Vulnerable, even. Hell, I used Body Language! It worked.
She went to the back to see if they had any more playsets in stock. They didn’t. She then explained to me that the displays were owned by their advertising company, and the store didn’t have the right to sell them. I sadly bent my neck and admitted defeat, thanking her for her trouble. Then, just before I turned to walk away, she reached out and put her hand on my shoulder. “Wait,” she said, “let me go see if I can get permission to sell that one.” She walked away and I spent the next several minutes wandering around the pretty princess section of Once Upon A Toy, pretending to be interested in several items of a pink and frilly persuasion in an effort to avoid further confrontation with the male clerk. After a little while, the girl appeared from around a corner with a large smile on her face. As she walked towards me, she lifted up her hands and gave me a double thumbs-up. “I had to ask two different managers,” she said, “but I got permission!” She went behind the counter and produced a small stepping stool. “We need to hurry though, before the first one I asked finds out.”
We walked over to The Little Mermaid section, she set the stool on the ground, then stepped on top of it and reached out for the playset. Sadly, however, she was too petite and her arms too short to have any hope of reaching it. “Let me try,” I said. “I have freakishly long arms.”

She bit her lower lip for a moment before casting a conspiratorial glance around the store. “Ok,” she said, “but don’t fall. It will be the end of my world if you fall. I’d be is so much trouble…” Before she could protest any further, I stepped onto the stool and reached upwards towards the playset. My hand closed around the edge of the box with ease, without my arm even fully extended. I pulled it from the shelf and stepped back down to the floor. We smiled at each other, and she escorted me back to the counter.
The unhelpful clerk was still there, glaring at the pair of us as she walked behind the counter to ring up my transaction. “I got permission,” she said in that matter-of-fact way women have of shutting men up before they even begin talking. She scanned the playset, I swiped my debit card, and that was all she wrote. The girl wished me luck and told me that she was glad to have helped me out. “I’ve worked here for a few years,” she said as she handed me the bag holding Trey’s prize, “and that’s the only thing I’ve ever seen with Sebastian. You lucked out!” I smiled, thanked her again, and went off to find Brittany and Trey.
Trey was, of course, terribly excited about the playset, which included not only Sebastian, but every major character from the movie. He wanted to open it and begin playing immediately, so we hurried back to the car. We made one more stop for a quick pretzel and some ice cream before getting on the road, but as soon as he was able, he tore open the package and pulled out every character, strewing them across the back seat of the rental car. He fell asleep with his new friends all around him, and we drove off of Disney property for the first time since we’d arrived. (I’m not counting the McDonald’s excursion. Let us never speak of its horror again.) It was time to go home.
I’ll leave you today with one more video. It should at least bring a smile to all but the darkest of souls, so don’t say that I never did anything for you. I present to you Master Trey, in all of his precocious glory. One day, just inside the gates of EPCOT, past Spaceship Earth and next to the Fountain Of Nations, Trey suddenly burst into interpretive dance for no apparent reason at all. I grabbed the camera and started filming just in time to catch the crowd pleasing choreography. Watch for the jazz hands and the rock horns at the end. Yes, I said jazz hands…

Boogie Nights.
SPARKLE, SPARKLE, SPARKLE!



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