Disney World: A Break From the Dark Side of Faerietales

Two weeks ago, I flew down to Disney World, where I paid over $100 to walk around out in the hot sun and wait in lots of lines.

According to the marketing department over at Disney, this all makes for a magical experience, filled with love, laughter and dreams-come-true.

I might be 32 years old, but I willingly admit I fell for that advertising ploy hook, line and sinker.

Between flying on magic carpets, getting pixie dusted, purchasing one of the “Mine. Mine. Mine” birds from “Finding Nemo” for my one best friend Ashleigh (she got me back for that unauthorized purchase by refusing to let me pay for my Tinker Bell paraphernalia purchases), and singing “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me” along with lifelike Johnny Depp figurines on the “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride, I had an absolute blast.

I even got to meet Tinker Bell, which I’ll admit I felt very, very stupid about at the time. After I made such a very big deal out of the opportunity, my four fine friends who were vacationing with me followed me into line and then refused to let me leave when I wanted to back out.

Let me tell ya, the actress who played Tinker Bell? Amazing!

She never broke character once, exclaiming over my “lost things” earrings, coming up with gadgets she could make out of them, and generally behaving so very much like the little kid’s cartoon character she was supposed to be that she had me talking to her like she was a three-year-old instead of a twenty-something like I’m sure she was.

I hope that girl gets a pretty paycheck for that kind of skill. I’m downright certain I wouldn’t have the patience for that job. (For that matter, neither would Sabrina, no matter what the cashier says at the beginning of “Not So Human.”)

Now, I’ll admit, if I wasn’t with such a great group of people, Disney World wouldn’t have been nearly so much fun. And I can’t imagine going there more than once every few years, which I’ve heard some people do.

But I left one happy little kid, covered in “pixie dust” glitter, clutching my bag of Tinker Bell acquisitions, and loaded up with fun pictures of tea cups, castles and elaborate treehouses first found on deserted islands.

Disney might be utterly ridiculous in so many ways, but it gets it right at least in this regard... Sometimes, it really does pay to “let it go” and forget your age.