Disney World

This will happen. Someday, an enterprising graduate student in a film studies department will propose to a faculty advisor that the miles and miles of video tape taken by regular American families for the last two decades will be a great subject for a Ph.D. thesis. The video tapes will depict, with uncanny accuracy, our American obsession with two things which seem to be the birthright of every American child: astonishingly straight teeth and hajj-like visits to our own cultural Mecca, Disney World.
What is it with Disney World? I have a painful confession to make, something akin to announcing one's status as an atheist at a Welcome Wagon Newcomer's Tea. I hate Disney World. I hate what happens to me at Disney World. I hate it that every latent snobby, elitist, and Marxist leaning gruesomely emerges there. I hate it when I feel compelled to announce in the Pirates of the Caribbean gift shop that we are really all capitalist tools supporting a media saturated culture where we cannot buy anything without having it tied in with the latest cartoon movie having Michael Eisner's imprimatur. I hate it how nothing is left to chance in Disney World. I hate it that there are even signs telling the tourist where to take a picture. I hate spending any part of my vacation marveling with complete strangers about the genius of Disney crowd-control. I hate the squeaky clean staff with their professional smiles. Most of all, I hate it that my husband is forced to take me in hand and threaten dire punishment if I ruin the day for the rest of the family.
My husband is right. I hate becoming a kill-joy. I make the conscious decision to straighten up, making a mental note that if the sad (and I hope unlikely) day comes and we divorce, the kids will trip over themselves trying to get to Dad's new rental townhouse and beg him to become their sole custodial parent. Mostly, I look forward to the next day when we will visit Epcot Center acknowledging their more liberal rules governing the sale of alcoholic beverages.
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