June 24th, 2019
“I do not want to go on the most boringest ride ever.”
My dad didn’t let me live this one down for a while.
We were at Disney World, which, in my young heart, was the most perfect place a person could imagine. Heaven was a distant and possibly fictional second. I had always wanted to be an animator and a writer and I was obsessed with everything Disney (and am, to a much more controlled extent, still today). There were so many things I wanted to do, and so little time, and my dad stood right in the way of that:
“I want to take you on the studio tour.” It was a slow-moving train that traveled behind-the-scenes of the park, and normally I would have been really excited but there were just SO MANY OTHER THINGS I REALLY WANTED TO DO. I said no. My dad insisted.
I bitched and moaned the entire time in line, and even though my parents are deaf, it spared them little. I was adamant that I did not want to go on “the most boringest ride ever” (my words, because I was as dumb a kid as I am an adult).
We finally got on and I was SO RIGHT. IT WAS SO BORING. IT WAS — wait, something was happening. We were brought to an area that was allegedly an old part of an Indiana Jones set. It had been inactive for a long time when all of a sudden boulders started rolling from the sky, with high waves and hot flames and I legitimately thought I was going to die. And my parents, those lovely, kindly folks, knew to take this photo at this exact time.
I was wrong. It was not the most boringest ride ever. It ended up being one of our favorite stories from the trip, and like I said, not one I lived down any time soon.
So don’t assume. Don’t assume today is going to be lame or dumb or boring. Because a lot of life feels like a backlot tour, and you never know when you’re going to find the adventure of your life during it.
The Den 