Disney is a manufactured place of wonder and magic. Meticulously so. Magical, yet imminently predictable at the same time. Once you’ve been going for awhile, great God almighty like we have, you pretty much know what’s going to happen. The enchantment of new discoveries around every corner, characters come to life, cartoon villages you are suddenly thrust in, music and smells and fireworks all taken in with young children toddling around…become magic you recreate and resample each time you go, as a kind of testament to that excitement when it was new and fresh. The view of the castle as you first walk in, holding hands again, down Main Street. Ope! There’s the evil queen popping out of the shades across the street as we stand and wait in the Peter Pan ride line. Space Mountain is still a bad-ass little roller coaster, isn’t it, let’s do zombie poses for the thrill shot this time and I bet it’ll turn out perfectly. The kids get older and we do too, sometimes slowly and sometimes suddenly. Sometimes so quickly.
It’s all part of our silly, predictable human nature. It’ll be the same kind of fun the next time, and you know we better do it almost exactly the same. It keeps you coming back, the near-perfect retelling of the story, experience, taste. But the differences are what keep me sane in the end, once I feel like a bored race car driver tracing the same track at safe-neck speeds. And the royalty of all differences are the people milling around this supposedly happiest place on earth. People are freaks, myself definitely included, and each year’s crop is different. Especially the character chasers.
Lilah, as I have said many times, is a character freak. As much as she loves rides, and the scarier the better, she ADORES characters. Loves Princesses, all fuzzy characters and animals (with Chip and Dale ruling the top of the heap, of course.) And Fairies at the tippity top, surprise sur-fuckin-prise. Flying over the rest of the heap, sprinkling fairy dust and smiling sardonically at those who despise them.
Over the years I have stood in more goddamn character lines than I ever imagined. I have seen every princess at least twice (Sophie’s phase was brutal) and every character from every movie that was ever graced an in-park privilege. Old Disney to new Pixar. Cruella de Ville? Yep, and one of her little secrets is she’s always played by a guy and is always hilarious. The line for her is extra special and surprisingly short. Mrs. Incredible? Many times, and her butt is always bodaciously big like they drew it. Sometimes prosthetic, sometime au natural. Overly boff Tarzan? Unfortunately yes, the only male in that line. Stitch? Yep, and surprisingly risqué to all of us. He gave Lilah his space phone number for later. Even ran into Jack Sparrow, who I swear to this day was actually Johnny Depp practicing for the 3rd Pirates movie, or merely on a sanctioned bender. He appeared out of his own ether to find 3 year-old Lilah on the way out of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride to talk for a few minutes. “Hewwo, Jack Spawwow,” she had said, as if this was commonplace and to be expected in her magical life. No lines or handler, gliding away without stopping when their conversation was over, disappearing into the gleaming green lagoon.
So since forever Lilah begs and begs and BEGS for every character we see, no matter how long the line. I think it’s the real reason she goes to Disney. And, because I’m a sucker, I end up caving first and have to wait with her. In a line full of nutty parents, kids, and freaks. Fully grown freaks who hit every character for some unknown and perhaps unholy reason.
So here I am in the Tinkerbell line. The queen of all Lilah lines. We’ve put it off the first 2 days and here it is the 3rd. There’s even a line the moment the damn park opens. But we’re here, and she’s still an excited little girl, and it’s OK to be happy about all this and hold her hand and listen to the piped-in giggling of elves and fairies echoing around the greenery and stream leading up to Tink’s hostel, full of 10 foot tall, fluorescent flowers and leaves. Tink will be fresh and the line is short. The line is short, because we made a fairy bee-line here as soon as they let us in. Just Lilah and I, some tired Mom with her parents and two very little nutty kids, a couple of 13 year old girls, and a 25 year old woman with platinum colored hair, tattoos, and a high-end camera. Definitely the photographer type. Nervous, sullen, pretty somewhere under all that angst. Disillusioned and full of warped perspective, I imagine.
That’s right, people, get your little interaction with the overgrown fairies over already, snap your photos, keep on keeping on. Wonder who we’re gonna get this time. OK so the other fairy, the fairy you meet BEFORE freaking Tinkerbell, is the Asian one. Silvermist? OK, whatever Lilah. At least Disney finally has some minorities almost on center stage now. Everyone’s moving, camera girl’s turn, then we’re next! Might even be done in time to meet the other two for a scream on Space Mountain.
Except young Annie Leibovitz isn’t here to just take a few snapshots. She’s here to talk. A lot. And about things that are very important, judging by her gestures and her extreme proximity to Silvermist. Maybe she’s with Disney and needs some high quality fairy poses that come with a lot of instructions. Not likely. Disney has a low body piercings threshold, among other things, and she’s way over the line.
I can’t tell what the hell she’s saying. The bouncer only lets one group in at a time, lest you disturb the precious 30 seconds of undisturbed fairy communion everyone is silently allotted. Except for this girl, who apparently never got the unwritten memo, and is having a Stage three, heart to heart with Silvermist. I didn’t know you could do that. This fairy doesn’t have a handler, so there is no polite Disney shove available. Excited hand motions and close talking. 5 fucking minutes with Silvermist and still she takes no picture. What the hell! And dammit I wish I could hear what they were talking about.
Finally she’s on her crazy way, and we get the typical saccharin treatment from Silvermist. No heart to heart for us. I should have made up a way better story with some inappropriate questions. Next time, if there is one. We get two crappy photos, a cloying goodbye, and NEXT! An entire family, grandparents and all, invade the fairy hut after us to capture another extremely awkward family photo proving that fairies are real and you can make them uncomfortable.
And another stupid long wait for Annie to best-bud Tinkerbell. Lilah is hopping crazy excited now. The 2 mm hops at about 300 rpm. A windup doll on crack waiting for this young woman to…to what!? WHAT the FUCK could she be talking to Tinkerbell about for five full, goddamned minutes? Didn’t she already get enough with the other one? Apparently not. Now I REALLY want to know what she’s talking to her about. If only they would let me closer. Disney freak of the trip, I have found thee.
The more I watch, the more I think this bag of nuts is asking all the characters for pressing advice. Could there be anything more loony than attempting to ask Disneyland characters for real guidance? Was she really so bad off that she had to have the fairies of the Magic Kingdom talk her off the ledge? Should I marry this guy? Am I in the wrong career? Is it time for drug counseling and Clozaril? Maybe it was even worse in L.A. than I thought.
We finally get our Tink time. She’s not the real Tinkerbell, like she was the last time we came, when the real Her went back in her mushroom house to get Lilah some actual fairy dust to sprinkle on her beaming face. No, this is a department store Tinkerbell for sure. Just some short blond with little feet and an odd wardrobe. I don’t tell Lilah any of my inklings and play it off for the pictures, so we can hurry and get on Space Mountain. On with the fun of our last day. Lilah is gleaming and bouncing slower but bounce bounce bouncing high as she can while still holding my hand. I did my Dadly duty and she’s happy and what a great…
“Daddy it’s Peter Pan!” she shouts.
I barely stop the Are you shitting me!? from roaring out of my mouth in the worst place ever for my natural dialect. There he is, the tiniest red-headed man you’ve ever seen, with a burgeoning line right in front of Pixie Hollow where I’m going to waste the rest of my natural borne life.
“We’ve never seen him here before!” She says and drags me forcibly to him. I try to fight back, but real fairies are strong as hell.
Goddammit she’s right, too. Pete is one of the few characters we’ve never had the pleasure to stand next to and smile. Shit. Back in line.
- and Sophie spot us, already done with Space Mountain. Through their line, their ride, and all the way back here. Eating popcorn, no less. I wave and point to the stupid line and Peter Pan and, you guessed it, crazy Anne spreading her Green Gables all over my morning.
“Alright, Sophie. I gotta hear what this woman is asking all the characters. Help me out. She’s killing me. Use those young ears.”
We moved forward, just in earshot, to listen to the scene. We missed what her long question was, the outpouring of words and pleading hand gestures lost to the din of the park, but his lisping response bore it out perfectly. He stepped one Pan step back, cocked a hand on his hip, and pointed his finger in the air just as Peter would.
“Never listen to what anyone else says…” he said decisively after a few seconds thought. Laying down the lost boy knowledge to his eager protégé, who was hanging on every word.
“Always make your own decisions…” he notched his second reply with his tiny finger, and then walked away from her and the whole waiting group in a little circle, taking that same finger and tapping his pursed lips, his gaze pointed up towards the sky, then at the white top of the Matterhorn. Deep in cartoon thought. He stood there like a stunted statue for 20 seconds, finally turning back to her for the capper.
“And never look back.”
She smiled with all her teeth, satisfied as could be, and strode off to a bench where she whipped out her phone and frantically tapped out Peter Pan’s words of wisdom. NEXT!
How beautifully ridiculous and sublime and moronic. Thank you Mr. Pan! You saved my morning!
We all have Gurus, and really all of them are silly when you come down to it, I guess. Climbing the top of a mountain for some sage advice from cave-bound hermit, paying a hundred bucks to ask a half-grown man in tights the same burning questions…You say tomato, I say you’re fucking crazy. Six of one, cheese dip of the other.
At least she got her answers from someone who took the whole thing seriously. Some potentially horrific advice, but who am I to judge? Sure, it was advice from an eternally stunted cartoon character wearing bright green tights and elven shoes, but at least it was properly considered and answered. Exactly what Peter Pan would have said. Walt would be proud.