And sometimes – if you’re like me – the next thing you know, you look around and realize that said break ended up being about two and a half years long!

But it’s ok because it’s not like I’ve been sitting around all this time just twiddling my thumbs. Nope, I’ve been real productive – so much that it makes only sense to share all of my great accomplishments here with you in that classic, bulleted-list style that I know you all love so much…

• I ate so many pizzas – it’s not even funny. Not all at one time, mind you, but over the course of 2.5 years?! So many pizzas!!!
• I tore a tree out of my backyard with my bare hands. And a shovel. And a lot of swearing.
• I tried that new guacamole burger that McDonald’s was making for a while. It wasn’t very good.
• I had a kid. Well, my wife did. I helped a little. He was a boy. He still is, too. It’s been interesting…
• I got my hair cut. Nothing fancy – just a little off the top.
• I fell in love with that new hit show on TV. What’s it called? Game of … The Price is Right.
• I yelled at the neighbor kids to get off my lawn roughly 187,000 times.
• And admittedly I was sick for a couple of weeks in there, so I didn’t really get much done then. Except for sneezing and coughing, that is…

Of course, the best news though is that despite my unreasonably extended break from my comedic commitments, I’m officially back now and that means that the comedy river is set to start a-flowin’ once more as I queue up one hilarious story after another, week after week, with each one occasionally being more hilarious than the week before!

Have you been yearning for humor columns about suburban lawn maintenance? I’ve got ’em!

Been aching for some tantalizing comedy about burritos and hot pockets and all of the other garbage that I tend to put into my body every day? Coming at cha!

Want to read lots – and I mean LOTS – of embarrassing stories about baby poop and the art of trying to clean it up by yourself??? Friends, do I have some tales to tell you…

The best thing about having a humor column – aside from all of the fame, glory, and the complimentary airport executive lounges – is having this great venue to share all of the bizarre happenings that stumble through your life on a daily basis, whether it’s the mailman cruelly ringing the doorbell to awaken a perfectly sleeping house or slipping even further into suburban servitude by trading in one’s convertible for an SUV. 

In a nutshell, my life is hilarious, and even if you’re the type of person who doesn’t really like nuts, but still seems to order stuff with nuts in it all of the time just so you can inevitably make a huge scene and complain about it to get your dinner and drinks for the night comped, I think you can probably have a laugh or two at my handy dandy humor column and if you can’t, well maybe I’ll comp your drinks for the night just to get you to shut up, too!

So after two and a half years of inexplicable hiatus, let it be known that your friendly neighborhood humor columnist has officially returned and is here to lighten your day once a week with tales of magic and mystery and probably far more jokes about babies and the poops that they create than I have ever written in the past.

Also, I promise that if I do feel the urge to take another break from writing, it’ll only be for a year this time … year and a half, tops.

Editor’s Note: Behind the Process is a series created by Scott Sevener to offer a special behind the scenes look at the making of his weekly humor column. The entire series in all of its slightly insightful, but mostly procrastinating glory can be found over at Comedic-Genius.com.

The post Behind the Process: The 2 1/2 Year Break appeared first on Just Laugh.

We surveyed 1,000 regular, fun-loving Americans just like you to find out about their weekend plans, then promptly lost the results and decided to just make up this list all by ourselves instead…

So what are your weekend plans?!

• St. Patrick’s Day, Part Deux
• Have I told you lately that I bought a boat? I’ll be on my boat. Boat!!!
• I don’t get weekends off because of blah-blah-blah responsibilities…
• 48 exhilarating hours of watching my Facebook news weed scroll by as I live vicariously through my 132 online friends.
• Not sure yet, but it’ll probably involve a bottle of malt whiskey, that Kid Rock CD from 1998, and my hot cousin who becomes surprisingly less like family after half a bottle of malt whiskey.
• Animal Planet has this really neat documentary about weasel shaving that I’ve kind of been looking forward to.
• Beers. Beaches. Bars. Babes. Bail.
• Mostly stalking.

The post The Weekend is Here AGAIN!!! appeared first on Just Laugh.

8:00 A.M. With the whole family awake and holding caffeinated substances, it’s time to start the most important part of our day: the application of sun tan lotion. This is a daily ritual down here, but especially important today because we’re going to Typhoon Lagoon, one of Disney’s water parks.

This is my first chance to show off the color I’ve started to develop as a result of our first full day here. I forgot to put on lotion that morning and ended up with a sunburn on my chest in the shape of a trapezoid, right where the shirt I was wearing flapped open. I’m very proud of my sliver of tanlike skin, and hope to expand upon it today.

The application process takes a bit longer today because Timmy is unwilling to get out of bed and prepare himself. He intends to remain in the room until his car is built. As I have no intention of remaining in the room to build the car right now I think he’s hoping for a spontaneous quantum miracle of some kind to take place.

8:20 A.M. Tim finally decides to get moving, but believes he’s going to be able to take his rubber snake with him to Typhoon Lagoon. While I do think this would be a hysterical object to bring into a pool with children, there are the lawsuits to consider. I convince him it would be much more fun to leave the snake rolled up under the bedsheets so we can scare the crap out of the maid. Tim agrees to this arrangement. He might be my son after all.

9:30 A.M. The basic theme of Typhoon Lagoon is that a typhoon wrecked an entire village, dropping a lot of water on it and a boat or two. The village has since been rebuilt as well as possible, and now it’s a tourist attraction. This is an odd premise in an area that goes through annual hurricane threats. One is threatening right now, as a matter of fact.

Since we’ve spent the last four days wandering around the other Disney theme parks praying for rain and wishing we were sitting in a swimming pool rather than walking about in the heat, we expect this experience to be much more gratifying. There are, however, some disadvantages to consider.

First, and most important, one does not generally walk about in shoes when one is in a water park. If this had been the first park we had visited this would not have been a big deal, but our feet have been severely abused in the last few days. The kids at least have on these things called “jellies,” which are transparent plastic sandals. They offer no support but they do protect the bottoms of their feet. Since the walkways around Typhoon Lagoon are all made of cement (the first water park that is designed with soft, squishy sidewalks will make millions) this is a real issue.

The second problem is that we have to consolidate the contents of the two shoulder bags we carry everywhere with us into one small waterproof container that isn’t even large enough to hold a pack of cigarettes. Obviously, this is not possible, and so we rent a locker as soon as we enter the park. Now all of our towels are a short walk, a long jog, and a brief sprint away.

The third problem is the map. As is the case with all the other parks, there is a fold-out map one can attain at the entrance. Said map provides the locations of all the water rides, as well as a ratings system to quantify our odds of survival. It’s a splendidly useful map, especially for us since we’ve never been here before.

But it’s made out of paper. As I’m sure many of you know, paper is not the best product to introduce into a largely water-based environment.

I pick up two maps. One I carry for as long as it takes us to get onto our first ride. The other I put into the locker, which will come in handy if I can ever find my way back to the locker again.

10:00 A.M. Our first ride is on something called Castaway Creek. This is a slow-moving river that circles much of the park. What you’re supposed to do is grab one of the many inner tubes floating in the Creek and hop aboard, and then lazily drift downstream, eventually ending up back where you started, or, at another part of the park, if you wish. It’s sort of like a low-tech monorail. We each get on our own tubes and start to drift.

This is very pleasant and relaxing. I could drift all day, it’s so relaxing. So naturally, the kids hate it and start complaining almost immediately.

10:15 A.M. We don’t drift at the same speed. I can’t really explain why this is, lacking as I am the appropriate mathematical skills necessary to apply chaos theory in relation to aquatic turbulence to the issue. I’ll just say Tim drifts faster than I do. I try steering myself along by waving my arms about in the water, but this doesn’t seem to help. Deb and Becky are behind us a fair distance, so there’s no chance they can catch up to him unless he laps them. It never even occurs to me to hop off the inner tube and swim. Or walk, even; the water is only three feet deep.

Tim disappears around a corner briefly, and when he comes into view again I see his tube but not him. I’m not TOO concerned about this (although my mother is; she’s reading it right now, and if you listen carefully you can hear her go “oh my God…!”) because Tim is a very good swimmer, and not one to panic in this sort of situation. Now I decide to get off my tube and work my way to him.

When I get there I find him just climbing back onto his tube again. He had evidently decided that since there was now no parental person near him it was a good time to get off the tube.

Tim is upset. Apparently, one of the “jellies” came off.

“Where?” I ask.

“Back there!” he says.

This is an utterly useless description. Who knows how far he drifted from the spot where it came off? It’s not like I can work my way upstream, either. For one thing, this would be very hard to do, for another, it would be suicidal on account of the large number of people on inner tubes behind us.

Fortunately, a man who had been near Tim when the shoe came off caught it before it floated to the bottom. This man is now named in my will.

10:30 A.M. We’ve now officially done one lap, and we’ve had enough of the drifting. Tim and I get out and then catch Becky and Deb when they reach us.

Believing this is all there is to this park, both children begin pining for the hotel room in rather loud and abrasive voices. We insist there are real water slides here and attempt to find one to keep them quiet.

10:40 A.M. We find something called Gangplank Falls. It looks like fun partly because all four of us can go down on a single tube. There are two drawbacks. First, the line is long. Our children have lost all patience with lines. We have too, but we’re quieter about it. Second, we pick up the raft at the bottom of the ride and then one of us (me) has to roll it up a long flight of wooden steps to the top of the ride. We encounter a second line along the way.

10:55 A.M. We go down Gangplank Falls. The ride lasts about thirty seconds. It’s so exciting we decide to never go on it again.

11:05 A.M. The children have stepped up their attack on our ears. But we’re not ready to give up on this park so soon.

We lead them along a pathway that goes under Mount Mayday. (All of the water slides come down this fake mountain. It has a boat on the top of it. You didn’t actually need to know about the boat, but I felt like telling you anyway.) Once on the other side of the path we realize we have absolutely no idea whatsoever where the heck we are. We stop for a drink.

11:15 A.M. We decide to split up for a moment, because Tim is no longer enamored of his “jellies.” We bought these shoes for him at the beginning of summer and he’s already outgrown them, and they’re hurting one of his toes. As we do not have any bags with us and we’re unwilling to carry his shoes for the rest of the afternoon, it falls upon me to attempt to find our locker. I’m hoping he doesn’t outgrow his swim trunks before I get back.

While I’m gone Becky, Tim and Deb go check out Shark Reef.

Shark Reef is a fun little spot Disney has set aside for those special visitors who may be clinically insane. I can think of no other explanation. What you’re supposed to do is put on snorkeling gear and swim from one end of the “reef” to the other, gazing pleasantly at the teeming variety of undersea life on the way. Included in this panaply of undersea creatures are a few real, live, non-animatronic sharks.

My wife actually said to me prior to our arrival here that she WANTED to swim with the sharks. I imagine if there was a skunk and porcupine petting zoo she’d be interested in that too, but I’m just guessing here.

11:30 A.M. It takes me this long to go to the locker and back, mainly because I get extremely lost. But once I return to the Shark Reef I can find no evidence of the rest of my family. It takes me several minutes to spot them on the platform leading into the pool. All of them are dressed in appropriate snorkeling gear. I nearly join them, until Tim chickens out, proving above all that he is smarter than he looks. Soon after, Becky follows suit.

Deb never does get to swim with the sharks, but that’s okay. One of my minimum requirements for a successful vacation is returning with the same number of limbs you left with.

11:40 A.M. One of the things I stumbled upon while hopelessly lost and looking for the lockers was the Storm Slides. I think maybe if I send the children down one of these they might consider having enough fun to stop complaining about how little fun they’re having. For at least a minute or two.

The Storm Slides are what are affectionately known as “body slides” which means you don’t need a raft or an inner tube or any other sort of flotational device. You just have to have a body, preferably your own.

The Storm Slides turn out to be our salvation. There are three slides to go down the line is short and it moves quickly. It lands the participants in a large pool that does not contain any sharks. And the trip to the bottom is rather rapid. We like it here.

12:15 P.M. It is time to move on again. We’ve done each slide about seven times. It is enough. We head back to the little pathway under the mountain and find ourselves at Keelhaul and Mayday Falls. These are two inner tube rides– individual tubes this time– that are almost fun enough to justify the lines. Almost. Tim would still rather go back to the hotel and build his car.

12:40 P.M. There is one more thing we haven’t tried yet. Right in the middle of the park is Typhoon Lagoon itself. This is an enormous wave pool, for people who find the ocean icky, I guess.

The lagoon is easily the most entertaining aspect of the entire park, if only to hear the sound “WHOOOOOOOMP” followed by the shrieks of several hundred people. Every five minutes or so a huge wave is begun at the deep end of the lagoon– hence the “WHOOOOOOOMP” sound– and all the persons foolish enough to be in the water at the time suddenly realize exactly how foolish they are, scream, and try desperately to make it to shore. Then once the wave has passed, they swim out again. If nothing else, this says a great deal about the attention span of the American public. We spend a long time in the lagoon, just to prove we’re not that bright either.

1:15 P.M. It is definitely time to go. We enjoyed ourselves, but our feet hurt a lot, and we have had no food. We hop a bus back to the hotel.

2:00 P.M. When we arrive at the room we discover Tim’s rubber snake is now sitting on the window ledge, hissing at us through the curtain. I think the maid got the joke.

2:10 P.M. I am sent away for food. The food court at the Caribbean Beach has a very large variety of digestible substances, only some of which is available at lunch time. I am sent for a bucket of chicken but am forced to return with burgers and fried chicken fragments instead. We still eat it, as we are very hungry. We consider eating the styrofoam containers, but fortunately, there is still more food in the minibar.

2:30 P.M. It is time to build the car.

Let me say a couple of things about the misleading nature of the company that makes these Japanese snap-together toys. I have since checked the box several times and see no indication whatsoever that a screwdriver is needed. I also see no indication that the car comes in its original, ready to assemble, atomic particles.

What we find when we finally open the box is a very large quantity of very small objects, including gears, random pieces of rubber and plastic, a supply of extremely tiny screws, an engine, and directions for smelting metal.

This will take some time.

Knowing there is no way I’ll be able to construct this vehicle with Tim and Becky “helping,” Deb takes them both to the pool.

3:30 P.M. I’m still working on the car. I actually have to build the on-off switch, the battery compartment (thank God we HAVE batteries for it,) and the complex gear system to hook up the engine to the drive shaft. As I child I would have loved this. As an adult, my fingers hurt too much to appreciate it. It does not help that my screwdriver is a pair of tweezers that only fit in the screws because they come to a point.

The plastic does actually snap together, a fact I discovered almost immediately when I broke a piece on my very first try. I’m hoping it’s not too important for that one piece of plastic to be firmly connected to the other piece of plastic.

4:10 P.M. The good news is, it works. The bad news is, that one broken piece is what ultimately holds the chassis to the bottom of the car. Consequently, every time the car hits something solid– as it is wont to do considering it approaches the speed of sound– the top pops off. Tim might actually consider this a GOOD feature. But I’m not going to find this out right away. Instead, I put the car down on his bed and fall asleep.

5:00 P.M. My family returns. Deb is somewhat less than happy that I opted for sleep instead of heading to the pool, but I can barely hear this over my throbbing fingers.

Tim is extremely happy with his car.

I apparently missed a showdown between my son and my wife at the pool. You may have noticed his name is getting mentioned an awful lot in this account, and that’s because he’s been doing the most complaining. Becky, who is not nearly as quiet as I might have indicated, has been a comparative angel. What happened at the pool was that Timmy insisted they return to the room so that he may see his new toy. But Becky didn’t want to leave yet, and Deb felt Becky had earned the right to have some say in the matter by now. So they had a contest of wills, which Deb won, thank goodness.

6:00 P.M. We make reservations at the Coral Reef, which is at Epcot. We ate there last year and not only thoroughly enjoyed the food but also liked the view; there are windows through which one can see the gigantic salt water tank from Disney’s Living Seas plaza. Also last year, when the waitress brought our food, she mistook what Deb had ordered and brought her crab cakes, a mistake Deb promptly corrected. Since that evening Deb has been regretting this. She is looking forward to having the crab cakes this time around.

Our ulterior motive for returning to Epcot is to take the children to see the fireworks display. We think they might just enjoy it.

7:20 P.M. On our way to the Coral Reef the children spot one of the game rooms. There are large areas of Epcot devoted to video games, under the auspice of bringing us the future of entertainment while at the same time engaging in rampant displays of corporate sponsorship. For example, there’s an entire plaza devoted to the joy that is Nintendo.

We drag them past the game room, unwilling to miss our reservation to provide Disney with more quarters.

7:30 P.M. The first indication that things are not as they were at the Coral Reef is the maitre d’ at the podium OUTSIDE the restaurant. This is new.

After we confirm our reservation we are escorted to the point where there are ordinarily a set of doors to the restaurant. These doors are closed. This is also new. Instead, we enter a different set of doors, walk through a lobby, and take an elevator to another floor.

We find ourselves in the executive dining room. As you have no doubt surmised, we are not Disney executives, so this is not where we expect to find ourselves.

Apparently, the actual restaurant is being renovated. Typically, Disney can do renovations very quickly by working around the clock, but this is not possible here because the sounds of construction upsets the fish. No, I am not kidding.

But the real drawback is that the executive kitchen does not come with a deep fryer, and so there are no fried foods on the menu. This includes crab cakes.

I can’t imagine it would have been a huge loss of revenue to simply close the Coral Reef altogether until the renovations are complete, especially at Epcot, where there are more restaurants than there are in the entire state of Missouri. But that’s just me.

8:20 P.M. We’ve eaten, and now the children are desperately interested in the damn game room. The fireworks start in forty minutes, though, so there’s no chance of this happening. We do, however, go on Spaceship Earth again, which, as I might have mentioned before, isn’t so much boring as it is extremely dull.

8:40 P.M. Because we don’t learn from our own mistakes, we walk the children all the way around the World Showcase Lagoon to try and get to the same spot where we previously witnessed the fireworks. To get them to walk at all, I had to promise to take them to the game room after the fireworks were over, knowing full well the game room would be closed by then. I’m a bad person.

9:00 P.M. The children both enjoy the fireworks show a lot. But not enough to forget about the game room. Deb points out that although the Epcot game room will be very closed by the time we get back to it, there is a perfectly good game room at our hotel. She is even kind enough to volunteer me to take them there. Words cannot describe the love I feel for my wife at this very moment.

10:15 P.M. It’s entirely possible that, if pressed for details concerning their favorite part of this trip, my children would list their visit to the hotel game room right at the top. And they’re terrible at video games. But they are here for only one thing: the candy claw game. You’ve probably seen these before. You have to manipulate a metal claw to get it to drop into a bin of candy and pull out whatever candy it can, dropping the booty down a chute. It looks a bit like those devices scientists use in the movies to pick up radioactive substances. This game does not end until candy has been gotten, thank goodness, or it would cost us a whole lot more.

11:15 P.M. Yes, we do stay this long. I can’t believe it either. The kids now have enough sugar in their possession to medicate an entire ward of manic depressives, and it is time to go.

11:30 P.M. Bed time. Finally. This would be the best time to hide all of the candy, but I am unfortunately too tired to consider it.

The post What Doesn’t Kill You the First Time Deserves A Second Shot – Day 5 appeared first on Just Laugh.

6:45 A.M. I get some coffee for me and Deb, and Diet Coke for the children. This manages to wake them enough to put on clothing.

The Diet Coke, by the way, is the fault of the camp we sent them to this summer. I happen to think diet soda is a vile substance best used for cleaning grease rags. Consumption is out of the question. But since the sweetener in Diet Coke is NutraSweet, and since NutraSweet does not attract bees– they feel the same way about it that I do– diet soda became the beverage of choice at camp. Now the kids can’t get enough of it.

7:15 A.M. After assuring Timothy that no matter how much he pleads with me, I’m not going to build his car before we leave, we head for the bus stop.

You may wonder why we’re awake at this hour. It’s because we’re going to the Animal Kingdom today. We’ve been told repeatedly to arrive at the parks as soon as possible after they open, and Animal Kingdom opens at 7:00 A.M. The reason the Animal Kingdom opens so early is that by midday the animals have all sought out shade. The irony of us going outside and risking heat exhaustion to view creatures that are smart enough to stay out of the sun while we’re there is not lost on me.

8:00 A.M. We arrive.

The Animal Kingdom is Disney’s newest park. I’ve been looking forward to this part of our trip for a while; I want to see how they pull this off. Because it seems counter-intuitive to me. Here’s a company that for the last fifty-odd years has been thriving on the creation of illusions. Their spokesman is a giant talking mouse, for God’s sake. A real, honest-to-God zoo just doesn’t seem their style. Will they put mouse ears on all the animals?

As advertised, the Animal Kingdom has animals. Lots of them. All over the place. (We’re pretty sure they’re not just people in suits this time.) In fact, as soon as we walk past the entrance gates we find ourselves in an area called The Oasis, which has plenty of random wildlife in it. We cannot stop and observe this wildlife right now, however, because we need to locate Africa first.

8:15 A.M. Our journey to Africa takes us past the Tree of Life. This is the central symbol we are meant to identify the Animal Kingdom with, much like we identify Cinderella’s Castle with the Magic Kingdom, and Epcot with Spaceship Earth, and Disney/MGM with falling down an elevator shaft. An enormous tree makes a world of sense for a nature-oriented park, and so Disney built an enormous fake tree. “Look at all this nature!” they seem to be saying, “We can do better than that!”

It is, of course, much more than just an enormous fake tree. It’s an enormous fake tree with hundreds of fake animals carved into it so that it resembles a zoological Rorschach test. We would stop and point out some of the animals, but we’re still walking as fast as we can to get to Africa.

8:25 A.M. We reach Africa.

The reason Africa is so important to us is the Kilimanjaro Safari. We’ve been told by the Birbaum Guide, which we still don’t entirely trust after the Test Track fiasco, that by midday the lines are terribly long and the animals are terribly scarce.

As is the case with all of their newer “rides,” the safari involves a little bit of theater. We are told (via color monitors that we all know are commonplace on real African safaris) to keep an eye out for poachers while we’re on safari. My children don’t know what poachers are, but that’s okay, because they aren’t paying attention. They just want to see animals, which is the whole point of the safari anyhow. Go out, get in a truck, go see animals. If I told one of them to look out for poachers they’d ask me what kind of animal it is.

We end up sitting right behind the driver in our safari truck, so he gets to hear everything we say. I’m forced to rein in my natural tendency to be sarcastic on the grounds that he might be armed.

As the truck winds along the dirt road we do in fact see a variety of wildlife, but since describing this can tend to be somewhat boring, I’ll tell you about the storyline we discover ourselves in the midst of instead.

About halfway through the tour the driver gets a call on his radio. Poachers are in the area and we must be on the lookout. The tension is staggering. Really. Tim is so worried, in fact, that he abruptly announces that he’d like to see some elephants, please. The driver turns around and tells him we’ll see elephants soon.

At some point not long after we do in fact see an elephant or two, we hear over the radio that poachers have taken a baby elephant! We are wracked with anguish. Moments later we hear that the poachers are in front of us, and if we speed up we might be able to force them to drive in the direction of a trap that’s been set for them. The driver– who has actually done a better job of “selling” the plot than most Disney employees do– says over the microphone “what do you say, do you want to go catch some poachers?”

Silence. The driver laughs so hard he nearly drives off the road.

“Do we get guns?” Deb asks. No, we apparently do not.

The driver then speeds up to follow the trail of the evil, nasty, brutish, monstrous, imaginary poachers (it wasn’t really up to us, after all.) This is the kids’ favorite part of the ride because we get to speed.

After driving fast for no obvious reason, we hear on the radio that the poachers have been captured, and thanks for all our help. A short time later we drive past an interesting tableau. On the side of the road is a disabled truck with what is supposed to be a real live baby elephant inside, along with some real live poachers. A real person is standing behind the truck with his rifle raised. The rifleman informs us that he’s got everything under control, and we go on our way.

This must be the worst job in Disney. Seriously. Every three or four minutes this poor man has to stand in the same spot, raise his rifle at an unoccupied truck, and say “all clear” to a truckload of visitors. In 100 degree weather, no less. I just hope it’s not a real rifle; the idea of an armed man suffering from sunstroke and being forced to stand still that long is a headline waiting to happen.

The kids liked the safari, though, and they learned a lot. For example, they learned that poachers are bad and it’s okay to shoot them. This information should come in handy in Boston.

9:30 A.M. We stop for some breakfast while still in Africa, at the Kisafiri Coffee Shop and Bakery. We have authentic African cuisine, such as croissants and bagels. Tim elects to not eat.

10:00 A.M. It’s time to leave Africa, before the 10:30 Ebola Outbreak Extravaganza starts. We don’t think the kids are ready for that show yet.

10:10 A.M. Now walking at a somewhat more leisurely pace, we decide to look around near the Tree of Life.

The area surrounding the tree is scored with pathways that lead to various animals. It’s fairly cleverly done, and for a change, the point of our visit is not what we’re walking to, but what we see on the way there. Not that we know where we’re going.

10:15 A.M. The pathway takes us up to and under the Tree of Life, and we discover more creatures in the underbrush. Suddenly, just on the other side of a wall of bushes, a herd of tourists run past us. We can almost understand their clever and beautifully complex language. We think something important is about to begin, and strive to determine what it is.

10:20 A.M. The herd is heading for a show called “It’s Tough To Be A Bug.” This is a film that takes place inside the Tree of Life. Unfortunately, the pathway there runs all over the place in front of the tree, and by the time we find the actual entrance we have to wait for the next show to begin. I again find Disney’s line-hiding skills remarkable. The line is out in the open right in front of the Tree of Life, but because the vegetation is so high, you can’t see it at all. We could be getting picked off one by one by a band of mountain lions, and we honestly wouldn’t know it. This is okay, though, so long as it’s the people in front of us that are being dragged off. Less of a wait that way.

10:45 A.M. The inside of the Tree of Life is designed to mimic the inside of a movie theatre lobby, provided that movie theatre lobby was carved by enormous ants. We again receive special glasses. This time the children know enough to be concerned about them.

I’m not going to ruin “It’s Tough To Be A Bug” for you. Deb is already upset that I told you about the dog sneeze at the end of “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience” and I don’t want to get into trouble with the Disney Police. (Of COURSE there’s a Disney Police.) I will say that when it comes to 3-D films, “It’s Tough To Be A Bug” is goopier, creepier and more disgusting, but I mean that in the nicest possible way. It’s quite an experience.

Watch out for the cockroaches at the end.

11:10 A.M. It’s becoming clear that as hot as it was for the first part of our visit, this is going to be a whole new kind of hot. In our right minds, we would head straight for the hotel and stay in air conditioning for the remainder of the day, but we left our right minds in the hotel room and the minds we’re stuck with are giving us all sorts of bad advice.

We have two problems. Our first, the long term problem, is that we have reservations at the Rainforest Cafe, but for 3:30 P.M., so we have to find another four hours’ worth of entertainment in heat so bad the safari elephants want to return to Africa just to cool off. The short-term problem is that as soon as we exit the bug movie Becky has to go potty. The nearest convenient potty is near the edge of Asia. I guess it’s unfair to complain about having to walk that far to get to a bathroom when there are people in impoverished third world countries who have to walk for months on end just to get to the edge of Asia to use the toilet. Nonetheless, it’s inconvenient.

11:20 A.M. Now that we’ve satisfied the urinary requirements for our whole family, we decide to look around a bit, given that we couldn’t examine any of the things we ran past as we ran past them.

There isn’t much to Asia right now, because Disney hasn’t finished shipping dead animals in yet for it. So our tour is brief. But we are waylaid by a street hawker who is trying to interest passersby in the “Flights of Wonder” show that is about to begin. “It’s not like any bird show you’ve ever seen before” he insists, obviously operating under the mistaken assumption that bird shows are commonplace where we come from.

But we have a lot of time to kill, so we give it a whirl.

11:30 A.M. He’s right, it isn’t like any bird show I’ve ever seen before. I have never heard so many bad puns before in my entire life.

It’s really a theatrical presentation. A little play goes on onstage, wherein our hero, Luke, comes across a strange avian shelter in the middle of a jungle. Luke has been wandering in the jungle for some time, following a treasure map in the hopes that it leads to some actual treasure so he can take it back to the hotel and “impress his friends.” Luke is not very bright. He meets up with Phoenix, who is a rather dogmatic man in a white wig with a fake moustache, who introduces Luke to a bunch of extremely well trained birds. In fact, the birds hit their marks better than either Luke or Phoenix do. They steal the show, which is appropriate, since it’s their show in the first place. The parrot was especially impressive; he sang “You Are my Sunshine” and a couple of other camp song standards.

We are told that a number of the birds we see here today are endangered, and that this is very bad. The solution is apparently for all of us to wander out into the forest and live in ancient rock temples. I’m still trying to figure out how this helps endangered species.

The climax of the show is when Phoenix transforms into a bird with the same color feathers as his wig and fake moustache. He flies over the audience a couple of times. Luke realizes the “treasure” he’s been looking for is the birds. I expect this discovery will only last as long as it takes him to discover bird poop.

Becky and Tim are duly impressed by the show, however.

11:50 A.M. Now that we’ve done the African safari, gotten spat on by bugs inside a tree (oops, there goes a secret) peed in Asia, and been assaulted by bad puns, it’s time to visit DinoLand U.S.A.

This is where Disney expects to attract the most people. For one thing, dinosaurs are cool, and for another, it’s the location of the only cool ride. By that I mean air conditioned. Did I mention it’s hot? We’ve seen several people burst into flames already.

The entrance of DinoLand is a brachiosaurus skeleton that also doubles as an archway; we walk between his legs. The brachiosaurus is arranged in a naturalistic pose, with his head raised up towards the sky as if to say “hey. It’s hot.”

With my map clutched tightly in my hand, I lead my ragtag band of family members directly to the Countdown To Extinction.

12:00 P.M. The very best part about this ride is that more than half the line is indoors. Outside, there’s a patio area with three small foot deep decorative pools. People are throwing themselves into the pool face first. Children with no shame are stripping their clothes off and sitting in the water. I don’t have the heart to tell them I think the decorative pools are actually the waste product of the air conditioner. They look too happy.

The walk through the hallways of the Countdown To Extinction leads us past encased fossils and walls with rock formations representing the K-T Boundary. (Yes, I know what that is, and no, I’m not going to tell you. I expect you to do SOME research here.) We also get treated to a few lessons from Bill Nye, the Science Guy, who is the only person on Saturday morning T.V. who isn’t animated and doesn’t wear a purple suit.

Once we’re all done with the waiting part we get to the entertainment. We’re informed (in a film) that the scientists working in this building have managed to build a time machine that can take us back in time to the early Cretaceous period, where we get to see some nice vegetarian dinosaurs and Bob Dole. After this tame introduction a lab technician sneaks in front of the camera and lets us in on the secret that he’s actually sending us to the edge of the K-T Boundary (I’m serious, I’m not telling you what it is) to fetch an iguanodon, thereby saving the last of the dinosaurs. This will of course be a lot more dangerous because it takes place while an asteroid is impacting the planet. It’s all very thrilling, except for the fact that it’s not.

But the ride is. After exiting the film room we find ourselves in the launch area for the time machines. The time machines look like humvees with an extra set of wheels. We are told to put all our bags in the holders in front of us, put on our seatbelts, and provide the names and addresses of our next of kin. Then the vehicle rockets ahead, and into the past.

What happens next is hard to describe. It’s very dark, and we’re moving very fast, except for when we happen upon an occasional dinosaur. Then we slow down so that they can scare the crap out of us. Especially the carnotaurus, which is there because velociraptor and t-rex have been done to death, I guess. (I can just hear the brainstorming session for this ride. “Are there ANY other predators we can use? Let’s talk merchandise here.”) At one point we turn a corner and a carnotaurus pops right out next to me and roars in my ear, blasting me with carnotaur breath. Then he takes our picture.

The kids loved this ride, although Tim was concerned until Deb told him the dinosaurs are just actors, and they’re really very nice. They’re also chained up so they can’t actually touch us. Becky’s response was much simpler. She just closed her eyes for the whole thing. In the picture the carnotaurus took of us, she’s closing her eyes and ducking. I, on the other hand, am screaming like a banshee. Which is why we don’t buy that particular photo.

12:30 P.M. We have now done everything we’ve set out to do at the Animal Kingdom except eat. And we can’t do that for another two hours. And it’s still hot. We bide our time at the souvenir stand in DinoLand.

1:00 P.M. We excavate at the Boneyard. This is a playground area beside the brachiosaurus at the entrance. Even if you do not have children with you when you come here, go to this area. There’s a waterfall to stick your face in and several large fans. We almost don’t leave.

1:30 P.M. We leave. But only to go through the Countdown To Extinction one more time.

2:00 P.M. We’ve now done absolutely everything we planned to do except eat at the Rainforest Cafe. But since this restaurant is the ONLY sit-down restaurant at the Animal Kingdom, there’s no chance at all that we’ll be able to bump up the reservation.

Tim and Becky are completely wiped out. They want to go back to the hotel room now. Becky would like very much to spend the remainder of the day at the pool, and Tim is expecting me to snap together his race car. Instead, we wander about the gift shops in the Oasis for a while.

2:30 P.M. There is actually one other area we haven’t explored yet. It’s called Camp Minnie-Mickey.

Like every other park Animal Kingdom has a spot for children to go to meet up with some characters, get pictures taken, and get an autograph. Yes, I’m serious. They sell these little autograph books so the children can get the signatures of the characters. This means every person who puts on a character suit has to practice signing the character name with stuffed gloves on, and the signatures of all the people who put on the character suits have to match.

We decide to give Camp Minnie-Mickey a shot.

2:40 P.M. They intentionally put the Camp a good distance away from the rest of the park, I’m guessing so they don’t confuse the children too much. (“How come King Louie doesn’t look like that orangutan over there?”) It’s not the most pleasant walk in the world, partly because Tim is now in super-whine mode.

The characters are hidden from view. We have to walk up and around a corner to a hidden gazebo (there are four) and wait in line in order to even determine which character we’re is waiting for. We go through one and encounter Rafiki and King Louie.

We expect Mickey and Minnie are in one of the gazebos, but we absolutely do not have the patience to go to each gazebo to find out. We head back.

3:00 P.M. We arrive at the Rainforest Cafe. Tim has to be physically dragged there because he has determined that he is not hungry even though he’s been living on a pez diet for nearly three days.

We are early, but there is a gift shop. In fact, there is a very large gift shop. As large as the actual restaurant. Remarkably, Tim stops whining as soon as we cross the threshhold and enter the air conditioning.

3:15 P.M. We buy some more stuff. Tim finds a giant rubber snake that is now his new best friend.

3:30 P.M. We sit down to eat. Finally.

The Rainforest Cafe is an exceedingly strange place. It is covered from floor to ceiling with a variety of fake vines, to go with the fake trees and fake animals. A gigantic aquarium runs along the edge of the room in the form of a series of large tubes shaped somewhat like Stonehenge tryptics. I’m sure the actual rainforests are filled with these. Every twenty-two minutes, there is a rainstorm. Loud thunder can be heard, the lights flicker, and the sound of rainfall echoes through the room. It does not, however, actually rain. This is good. Outside I would have been pleased by rain, but this rainforest is air conditioned.

The food is excellent.

3:50 P.M. We witness a miracle. Timmy eats. There is much rejoicing. A second miracle follows a few minutes later when I take him to the bathroom and he poops. We rejoice again, but a tad more quietly. This means it may actually be possible for me and Deb to enjoy our evening.

5:00 P.M. Let me explain. For the past six months, when discussing our imminent vacation, Deb and I agreed on one very important detail: we were going to get a night out by ourselves. Somehow.

Our plan was to drop the children off at a spot called the Neverland Club, which is a child care facility at the Polynesian Resort. We have also, for the past six months, been pumping up the concept of the Neverland Club with the children in the hopes that they would be enthusiastic over the idea. Early this morning I made 6:00 P.M. reservations with the Club.

On leaving the Rainforest Cafe, we take a bus to the Ticket and Transportation Center and walk from there.

6:00 P.M. We reach the Neverland Club, which is much smaller than we thought it would be. The kids don’t seem the least bit reluctant about staying there, however.

6:15 P.M. What we would like to do is go to Downtown Disney West Side, where there is a 24 screen movie theater. First, however, we need to go back to the hotel room to drop off the bags, and, more importantly, change and shower, because we both smell like we’ve been tending a compost heap all day.

6:45 P.M. I call the movieline from the hotel room while Deb showers. The only film I have any interest in seeing is Snake Eyes, which is playing at 7:20. By the way, I think it’s remarkably generous of Disney to show movies by other production companies at their movie theater. I wish they showed the same magnanimous spirit with their in-room televisions. There is no pay-per-view in the rooms, and the only channels that come in at all are ABC, ESPN, The Disney Channel (in two languages) and Disney Resort T.V. (also in two languages) which basically shows people having a lot more fun at Disney World than is humanly possible.

At any rate, I relay the movie time to Deb. It’s right here that our plans fall apart.

The problem starts with the buses. Because we have no car here we have to rely on the Disney bus system, which is, to their credit, extraordinarily efficient. Except in this instance. There are no buses that go directly from one resort to another, for the obvious reason that this is not a major need. The parks close at 9:00 P.M. and the buses stop running at 10:00 P.M. However, the buses to and from Downtown Disney continue running until 2:00 A.M. What we would have to do in order to see a movie is:

1: take a bus from the Caribbean Beach to Downtown Disney,
2: after the movie is over, take a bus from Downtown Disney to the Polynesian Resort,
3: take a bus from the Polynesian Resort to Downtown Disney,
4: take a bus from Downtown Disney to the Caribbean Beach,
5: watch the sun rise.

We are told to allow forty-five minutes to an hour for each bus hookup, to account for the time it takes for the bus to arrive and to drive us to our destination.

We could hire a cab, two or three times even, to speed up this process, but then comes our second problem. We’re worried about our children. I know this comes as something of a surprise given how much I’ve been complaining about them, but once we saw how much smaller the Neverland Club was than we had anticipated, and given the fact that even with a cab involved we would end up not picking them up until after 10:30, we were concerned. For all of you non-parents out there, this is the real reason parent couples don’t go out.

We decide it might be best if we just visited a park for a couple of hours instead. We pick Epcot as we have not yet seen the fireworks show there, IllumiNations.

7:45 P.M. We arrive at Epcot, our first visit to any Disney park without the children. We proceed immediately to the World Showcase to examine some of the countries we had not yet had a chance to visit. We are also looking for a good place to sit down and see the fireworks show, and beer.

8:45 P.M. Germany has beer. There is much rejoicing.

9:00 P.M. Here’s something I don’t understand. In the Magic Kingdom, every evening the fireworks begin at 8:45 so that one may witness it and then be able to leave the park at the same time the park closes. The Epcot fireworks are scheduled to begin right after the Magic Kingdom show concludes, so that they’re not going on at the same time. Which is silly, because both parks are so far away from one another that there’s no way the two shows can compete, and there’s no way to get from one park to the next in the time allotted to see both shows in the same evening. And as a consequence, the Epcot show ends fifteen minutes after everything there closes down. I’m guessing it’s because Disney only owns one fire truck.

The fireworks are dutifully spectacular. But if you catch them, be sure to check the wind. Since there’s also a laser show involved, and since lasers work best in smoke, there’s a lot of smoke being made to improve upon the experience. Unless you happen to be downwind. Fortunately, we are not, but I imagine the folks in China and Norway are unamused.

9:15 P.M. The show is over, and we have unwittingly positioned ourselves at the farthest possible point from the exits. We would take a boat to cross the lagoon, but about 80% of the people who stuck around for the show have the same idea, so the docks are full. And there is no evidence the boats actually run at this time. So we walk.

9:45 P.M. It really does take this long to make it from the far end of the World Showcase to the monorail. We hop aboard the one that will take us to the Ticket and Transportation Center.

10:20 P.M. We make it back to Neverland, only ten minutes earlier than we anticipated we’d be able to had we caught a movie.

Upon entering the area where the children are playing, we discover Timmy is deeply involved in a game of Concentration, and Becky has become queen of the giant checker board. Both of them look at us and proclaim “what are YOU doing here?” with more than a touch of disdain in their voices.

10:40 P.M. We manage to drag them from their newfound friends. We walk to the front desk of the Polynesian and ask them to call us a cab.

10:50 P.M. Try to avoid taking cabs while in Disney World, if you can. They are very efficient and they know exactly where they’re going, and they’re even air conditioned, but I was watching the meter and I swear it was counting up the fare exponentially.

11:10 P.M. Finally, back in the room again. We get the children ready for bed, and tell them a bedtime story about the mean old daddy who wont be building any toy cars for his son any time soon.

11:30 P.M. We sleep. Sleep good.

The post What Doesn’t Kill You the First Time Deserves A Second Shot – Day 4 appeared first on Just Laugh.

7:30 A.M. I’m not very good with wake-up calls. There’s no snooze button. I climb out of bed, finally, and wander over to the food court. (I do stop to put on clothes.) The food court at the Caribbean Beach is near the main swimming pool, and since we’re staying at Trinidad, which is right next door, it’s a pretty quick walk to half-decent coffee.

7:45 A.M. I return to the room with two cups of coffee and a bag of donuts. The children want absolutely nothing to do with the donuts. They want the candy in the minibar.

Every room comes with a fully stocked minibar with a little window displaying some of the goods available in there. Naturally, all the candy is fully visible in the window. The very first thing I did when we got to the room was remove the key to the bar and lock it in the room safe, then pocket the room safe key. Since then, the children have spent every available moment trying to figure out how to jimmy open the minibar. They even went so far as to go though my pockets looking for the key. They found the safe key, to their credit, but it of course doesn’t open the minibar.

So they have no interest in the donuts and I’m not going to let them have pez for breakfast any time soon. Deb is equally disinterested in the donuts. I happen to think they’re pretty good, and based on the amount of sugary glaze covering them, they should last at least a week or two.

8:45 A.M. We’re dressed and out the door. On today’s agenda: Epcot, which Disney refers to as “where we put all the boring rides.”

I’m looking forward to getting there, though, since I read that Disney has upped its efforts to make Epcot more exciting. They recently added a ride called Test Track, which, according to the Birnbaum’s Guide is the “most keenly anticipated in Epcot history.” It also calls it a “thrill ride of the highest order.” Reportedly, the Test Track is the longest ride in all of Disney World. It involves a journey in a faux car along a faux track. We get to sit in for the crash test dummies. Or something like that. Anyhow, it sounds like a lot of fun.

9:30 A.M. We get to Epcot and immediately start checking signs that will direct us to the Test Track. We find one. Apparently it’s located in an area called “Coming Soon.” This is coincidentally the same area it was located last year. Birnbaum will be hearing from my lawyer.

10:00 A.M. We find ourselves in line for “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience.” According to Birnbaum, this is a highly recommended show, but what the hell do they know? Still, we have some time to kill, given that we have a 1:00 P.M. lunch reservation in Japan, and there’s nothing else to do except shop. Not that we wont be doing any shopping. But three hours of it is a tad much.

10:20 A.M. I have been to 3-D movies before. I saw “Jaws 3” in 3-D, and I enjoyed it all right, even though it was the most awful film ever made, with the possible exception of “Jaws 4”. (As I recall, the ad line was “Jaws 3-D: because 3-D is the only way to disguise just how much this film sucks.”) But the basic point I am striving, and failing, to make, is that 3-D movies are usually about as scary as a bad film with Michael Caine in it. No, wait, that’s “Jaws 4.” Um, forget I mentioned Jaws altogether. Let’s go to the next paragraph.

The children have never experienced a 3-D film, and “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience” seems pretty much tailor made for their introduction to the genre, despite all the warnings. Just about half of the rides have warnings on them, by the way. Disney is very worried about our children. If you’re a child or a pregnant female person, and you’re going there, expect to be warned a lot.

The warning in front of this film reads “this film may be too intense for young viewers. And your wife. And you might pee your pants yourself, pal. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.” We ignore it.

To start things off, we’re ushered past a helpful Disney employee handing out special glasses, and into a large room with nothing vaguely resembling seats. There is a long pre-film film that introduces the basic premise of the actual film. It is a very long and boring pre-film. I think they do this to get an actual head-count of the children in the room, because by about halfway through it all of them are announcing just how boring they find this.

Finally, the doors open on the side of the pre-film film theater room and we all walk into some fairly standard rows of fairly standard seats where we sit down in a standard fashion to watch the film film. Then the fun begins.

To say that the effects are realistic is to grossly understate things. At the very beginning of the movie a glass neon sign is rolled forward until it appears to hover over the audience. This sign is subsequently shattered. Deb actually tries to brush the broken glass from off of the children. Already, Becky and Tim have adopted the fetal position.

But this is nothing. When a hundred cinematic white mice are accidentally let “loose” into the audience, gusts of air blast our feet, creating a sensation fairly similar to how a mouse might feel as it brushed past your leg. This is followed by lots of spontaneous screaming.

Then there’s the lion. It’s supposed to be a tabby cat, created by one of the contraptions in the film to hunt down the mice. It transforms into a lion’s head before they shut down the machine. The lion proves to be too much for Tim. He loudly announces that he doesn’t like this any more. Becky concurs. We remove their glasses, which solves the problem neatly.

After the lion we are treated to a gigantic snake (actually, it’s normal-sized; we’re shrunk) and, in the end, a gigantic dog. It’s hard to say objectively which is worse. On the one hand, the snake is infinitely more terrifying. On the other hand, the dog sneezes on us, and we’re all pelted by a fine spray. This isn’t terrifying, but it’s pretty disgusting.

11:00 A.M. Having escaped the movie, Timmy announces that if he ever sees that again he’s going to have to sit in a different seat. The seat he was in, it seems, was bad, because “everything was coming right at ME!”

11:15 A.M. We take a boat ride.

Here’s a travel tip. If you’re looking at a map of the Magic Kingdom compared to a map of Epcot, keep in mind that the two of them are drawn to a different scale. Epcot is much larger than it looks. There are boats that cross the World Showcase Lagoon. Use them.

11:30 A.M. We reach Morocco, which, as everybody knows, is right next to Japan, especially if you don’t unfold your world map all the way.

Since we have nothing special to do until 1:00, we decide to do a little shopping. The World Showcase is just about the only place you can go in Disney World to find products that do not have anything resembling a Disney character on them. I don’t think I need to tell you how appealing this is.

I have also decided to go into shopping mode in order to attempt to silence the children. Since our first day we’ve been telling them “no” on a fairly consistent basis. This is not because we’re terrible people. We don’t like saying no. Really. But neither child can walk more than ten feet without seeing something they want. I’m hoping if I start saying yes a little more often, maybe, just maybe, they’ll stop asking for a little while. Of course, given the heat, my ability to reason is questionable.

In Morocco, Tim and I spring for hats. I find a fairly practical one with a wide rim to keep the sun from my eyes. Tim finds a fez, which is thorougly impractical, but since it’s the same kind of hat Aladdin wears, he MUST have it.

12:15 P.M. We reach Japan.

Now if you’re looking for some really cool stuff to buy, Japan is the place to go. Say, for example, you really really want to buy a sword. They’ve got ‘em. Lots of ‘em. Reasonably priced too. Well, I assume they are; I haven’t done a lot of bargain-hunting for swords. I’m not allowed to buy a sword, but I do buy a kimono.

Becky and Deb discover oysters. Using ancient pearl-fetching techniques, an authentic Japanese person will coax an oyster of your choice open using special words in her native tongue (“open sesame”) so that the pearl may be removed, cleaned, and set into jewelry. All you, the consumer (“stupid American”) have to do is choose the oyster and live with the pearl you end up with. So Deb and Becky get pearls.

Meanwhile, I buy Tim a car.

Well, not a real car. He finds a section loaded with model cars that need only be assembled. “No glue necessary” the box reads (in English, of course,) “parts snap together.” Since this sounds kind of neat, and since I’m in my yes mode, and since it’s less expensive than the pearls, I buy it. (The swords are also less expensive than the pearls, but do you hear me complaining?)

1:00 P.M. We eat at a restaurant called Teppanyaki. This is a unique dining experience, to say the least.

Apparently, there’s a shortage of tables in Japan. I say this because it appears to be common for them to eat on their cooking grills. I have been telling my children for years now not to go near the stove when I’m cooking, and now I’m telling them to eat ON the stove.

Not that this isn’t entertaining. Both kids are rather impressed by the expertise of the chef. (Now they’ll be expecting me to do this.) At one point, right after the first course of food is set on our plates, a hostess comes over to Tim and asks him if he knows how to use the chopsticks he’s brandishing. He says yes, and proceeds to demonstrate his skill by holding them in two hands and flailing the food just about everywhere but in his mouth. She politely removes the potentially lethal weapons from his hands, folds the wrapper they came in, sticks the wrapper near the top of the sticks, and puts a rubber band around them. They now work perfectly, and require minimal dexterity to operate. She does the same for Becky’s chopsticks. Mine she leaves alone. This is my own fault. I usually make sure nobody’s looking when I lean over and suck the food directly into my mouth to disguise my utter inability to use chopsticks with any modicum of success.

2:00 P.M. Having eaten well– except for Tim, who’s still on a hunger strike– we wander over to The American Experience. Given that there are a lot of pavilions here representing a lot of other countries, Disney felt olbiged to include an American one as well. I don’t really understand why. But the “Let’s Slaughter Some Native Americans” show is very impressive. Be sure to catch it.

2:30 P.M. We take a boat back to the other side of the lagoon, and hop aboard the Spaceship Earth ride, where we get some much needed sleep.

3:00 P.M. We reach an impasse.

We would like to hop aboard the monorail and head to the Magic Kingdom to spend the remainder of our evening there. A race track ride we saw from our gondola on day one is one of our targets, plus we want to eat at the Liberty Tree Tavern. Our problem is, Tim has announced he’s too tired to continue walking, and wishes me to carry him for the remainder of the day.

It’s entirely possible Tim really is too tired. He hasn’t slept well, and of the 47 acres that Disney owns, Epcot takes up about 70 acres, so he’s been walking a lot. His diet has also consisted of nothing except candy and soda for basically the last two days, so I’m wagering this might have a bit to do with it. Plus he’s complaining of a stomach ache. This, too, may be quite genuine.

We all sit down at a bench in Epcot and hashed it out. This is basically how it goes:

Tim: Daddy, will you carry me?Me: No.

Tim: But I’m too tired to wa-ha-ha-lk. (This is “walk” with a lengthy whine in it.)

Me: Then we’ll have to go back to the hotel, because there’s no way I’m carrying a conscious child in this heat.

Tim and Becky: NOOOOO!

Deb: Well what do you want us to do?

Becky: We want to go to the Magic Kingdom!

Tim: Yeah!

Me: Then you have to walk.

Tim: But I’m too tired to walk!

Me: Then we have to go back to the hotel.

Tim: I don’t WANT to go back to the hotel!

Me: Then you have to walk.

(Pause)

Tim: But my stomach hurts.

In the end we decide to accept that Tim’s stomach does in fact hurt, given that we are well aware of exactly what has been going into that stomach. Deb comes up with the stoller solution.

Disney has strollers available for rent. They’re large enough for an average sized four year old. Neither of my children are four years old or average sized. It’s going to be a stretch.

Also, I get to carry Tim to the monorail. Becky is jealous. But Becky is also almost ten pounds heavier.

4:00 P.M. We arrive in the Magic Kingdom and rent a stroller. Tim’s knees almost completely obscure his view. Becky is of course required to get a turn in it as well, on the grounds that she too is tired, and not giving her a turn would be unfair. When she sits in it she runs a serious risk of bloodying her nose with her thigh.

We take Tim directly to the First Aid area, on the grounds that while his stomach ailment is probably psychosomatic (we could actually hear the gears clicking in his head when he thought of it) he has been eating so poorly there’s always a chance there’s actually something wrong with him.

The nurse suggests that perhaps the reason Tim is having so much trouble is that he hasn’t had a bowel movement since we left Boston. We get some Maalox (child sized, pill form) and hope it cures him of the urge to claim his stomach hurts.

5:00 P.M. Having temporarily solved the problem of the Case of the Whining Child, we head once more to Space Mountain and add to our frequent flyer miles.

6:00 P.M. We exit the ride and discover it is raining. It last for two minutes. This is the only time we see rain fall the entire trip, despite the fact that a hurricane is hovering near the Carolinas. Last year it rained every day, which was actually rather pleasant.

7:00 P.M. We eat dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern. All except for Tim. I think he’s shooting for Gandhi’s record.

8:00 P.M. The race track we observed earlier is called the Tomorrowland Speedway. Let it be known that the very first time one of my children drove me somewhere in a motorized vehicle was at this track. Let it also be known that based on the proficiency exhibited, this will also be the last time one of my children ever drives a motorized vehicle.

The cars are stuck on the track by way of a tall bar in the middle of each lane. Whenever the car veers too much in one direction or another, the tires hit the bar. Tim seems to enjoy hitting the bar whenever possible, even if it means swerving madly on a straightaway.

Becky is apparently even worse. According to Deb, the cars in OTHER LANES had to swerve to avoid her.

8:45 P.M. We catch the fireworks display. Lots of stuff explode. You know how this works.

9:10 P.M. After returning the stroller, we catch the bus back to our hotel. Tim starts asking me to build his race car before the bus even pulls away from the curb.

9:45 P.M. He still wants me to build the race car. I immediately regret having made the purchase in the first place.

10:30 P.M. Becky is asleep. Tim is wondering if perhaps, before he goes to sleep, I could maybe take a little time out and build his race car.

11:00 P.M. Now that Tim is asleep, I take his car outside and throw it in the lake.

Just kidding.

Not that I didn’t consider it.

The post What Doesn’t Kill You the First Time Deserves A Second Shot – Day 3 appeared first on Just Laugh.

It took me a few seconds to realize why I was even talking to Goofy on the phone. I had requested a wake-up call, and the characters, who you’d think have better things to do, make the calls. I think this is a bad idea, because right now I hate Goofy for waking me. They should have the villains do these calls. I’m SUPPOSED to hate them.

I set the wake-up call for this early because as we understand it, the busiest times in the parks are midday. The plan is to get in two or three rides while the lines are small. Even if we sleep through the whole ride.

8:30 A.M. Yes, it takes us this long to wake up and dress. We’re not morning people, okay?

9:00 A.M. We reach the Disney/MGM Studios, currently being advertised as “Disney’s Newest Park Last Year. Death to the Animal Kingdom.” (I didn’t take notes for this part, so I’m free-styling here. Can you tell?) Our intended goal is to reach the Soundstage, where there is breakfast, and, much more importantly, coffee. I tried to make coffee in the room, where there is a much ballyhooed coffee machine, but too much thought was required. There were little tea packet-shaped coffee packets in the mini bar that included no instructions for use. So, having no idea whatsoever how much coffee this packet was supposed to make, I made eight cups out of it. It was so weak the coffee was actually clear except for a dozen little caffeine molecules drifting in broth. This did neither of us any good. The children are no better, having gotten far less sleep than is customary. This does not bode well for our day.

9:10 A.M. We have not yet reached the Soundstage. Deb is obviously not as tired as I am because she is capable of reading the sign to the camera store.

We do not own a functioning camera. Last year we recorded our vacation on disposable cameras, which are great except that the pictures they produce are also quite disposable. Determined to do a better job for the sake of posterity (if these columns are the only record, God help us) I set out to purchase a camera.

I know nothing about cameras. Worse, I am not conscious and cannot form complete sentences. I consider pretending I speak a foreign language, but don’t trust myself to be clever enough to pull this off, so when the salesman comes over to me (standing agape at a wall of plastic encased cameras, I LOOK like I need help) I content myself with pointing and forming one word sentences, like “price?”

Deb, meanwhile, has wandered off, as have the children. I purchase a suitably random camera (“Camera good? I buy.”) and drift next door where I find them posing. Really. What they’re doing is holding real still so their faces can be superimposed on pictures of famous movie characters. Tim, for example, is stuck on the body of Luke Skywalker. The idea is, the image is reproduced on photographs that we can take home with us for merely $12,350- per copy. Deb insists that we pose for our own photo once the children are finished with theirs. I hedge. I don’t think my morning face should be seen in public at all, much less captured on film, especially one depicting me as a cowboy. I of course lose this battle. No you may not see the photo.

9:20 A.M. We reach the Soundstage. Like most of the locations at MGM, this restaurant is designed to look as if a movie is being made somewhere nearby. Characters walk about the room greeting children and causing them to choke on sausage. It’s their job. We see Aladdin, the Genie, Rafiki, Miko, and Belle. (That’s four different movies, in case you’re counting.)

On one side of the room, there’s a large covered staircase, at the top of which is the Genie’s lamp. When rubbed, a light slowly forms behind the lamp that eventually congeals to form an image of the Genie. It’s pretty cool. And Tim cannot be dragged away from it. At one point I convince him he has to eat, get him to walk all the way down the stairs and follow me in the direction of the buffet tables. One second he’s behind me, the next he’s gone. I have to search the whole room before I discover he’s decided to just turn around and go back to the lamp, without bothering to mention that he finds my argument in favor of food less than compelling.

9:50 A.M. We do get Tim to eat a little something, in between visits to the lamp. Deb and I get coffee, I discover polysyllables again, and we get lots of pictures with characters.

10:15 A.M. On the way back from the bathroom, Deb, Becky and Tim come across Belle a second time. Belle invites them to the “pre-parade” where she says she’ll come over and say hello.

At 1:30 every day there is a parade in MGM whose theme is based on the latest Disney film. Last year it was a Hercules parade. This year it’s Mulan. Belle is not in Mulan, so I don’t know what she’s thinking, exactly. I also don’t know what a pre-parade is. Do they parade before the parade? And if so, isn’t that also a parade? Either way, we’re now contractually bound to watch the parade, something we were less inclined to do before Belle opened her mouth.

10:25 A.M. We have decided to make our way to Star Tours first, but on the way there we discover the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular show is about to begin, so we drag the kids there. Our reasoning is that there’s no way we’ll ever get to see this otherwise. The shows take place once every forty-five minutes, so odds are good it’s an hour-and-a-half wait at any other point in the day.

This is not a ride; it’s a show, and it’s the first show we’ve attempted to bring the children to. We’re actually not sure how they’ll react. Worse, it’s stadium seating with no seat belts, so both of them are free to bolt on us.

10:30 A.M. The show begins with a “casting director” asking for volunteers from the audience to go up onstage and make utter fools of themselves. I elect to pass on this invitation, although Deb almost gets up there. The casting director asks for women who can scream loudly, and Deb out screams everyone in our section, so much so that the director thinks it’s the woman in front of Deb that screamed that loud.

Someone else, ostensibly from our section is also chosen. His name is Ted, and he is spotted by the casting director as he tries to get to a seat in the middle of the row behind me. The reason he is spotted is that he is wearing an extremely loud shirt.

This is the part where I get to ruin everyone’s fun, or at least, everyone within earshot. A couple of things about Ted bother me. First, there’s no seat in the row he was trying to get into. Second, when he’s onstage he keeps looking up to that row and asking silent questions such as “why am I up here?” but there’s nobody in that row responding to him. Third, Ted is much too funny when he’s onstage. Fourth, there seem to be a lot of ready-made loud shirt jokes available to the rest of the crew.

The obvious conclusion is that Ted is a plant. I express this opinion out loud so that everyone else knows how damn smart I am.

The show itself is pretty fun. What they do is reenact some of the fight scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The only problem is after each stunt scene they have to set the next scene up. (After the “temple” scene, they had to roll the temple set out of the way in three pieces. There was a village scene behind it.) This means there’s a lot of talking and demonstrating in between scenes. Tim does not have the patience for this.

Tim doesn’t actually exhibit any patience for anything today. Given that it’s very hot (already) and he’s very tired, he’s decided to simplify his own efforts to communicate with us by sticking only to sentences that begin with either “I want” or “I never get.” And each statement is nonnegotiable. Once we see the temple scene this conversation takes place:

Tim: I want to go now.Me: The show’s not over yet, Tim.

Tim: I want to go NOWWWWW!

Me: But Tim…

Deb: Tim, sit down, the show isn’t over.

Tim: (Mute. His expression changes from a frown to a profound expression of dismay. He looks as if he’s just watched someone shoot a puppy right in front of him. His mouth starts to open, after which a sound will come out that will be louder than any of the screams audience members used to audition with earlier.)

Deb sees this coming before I do. She bolts out of her seat and drags Tim to the back of the amphitheater. A conversation ensues which I am not privy to. Generally speaking, my wife comes up with threats I can’t even imagine, but they usually work.

They return, and Tim looks like he’s going to sit through this.

10:50 A.M. During a demonstration showing the difference between a stunt punch and a real punch, Ted gets the crap beaten out of him, or so we are led to believe. Then he gets up off the mat and is introduced as one of the stunt men. Now everyone in the audience who heard me identify him as a ringer understands why Deb doesn’t go to the movies with me very often.

11:05 A.M. The show is over and we make our way to Star Tours. Tim now finds this turn of events unacceptable. He wants to go on the “elevator ride” (the Tower of Terror) instead and expresses this sentiment as “I never get to go on the elevator ride!” But the Tower is on the opposite end of the park whereas the Indiana Jones show drops us right in front of Star Tours.

In a concerted effort to halt our forward progress Tim grabs onto a metal pole outside of the entrance and refuses to let go. This is when I find out that Deb threatened to take Tim back to the hotel if he acted up again. She asks for her room key and says she hopes me and Becky have a nice day.

For those of you who are not currently parents, you have to understand these kinds of threats take place all the time, and it’s pretty much understood between the two parents that it’s a bluff. I’m hoping it’s a bluff, at least. Deb has been known to follow through, which is why the kids are considerably more afraid of her than they are of me.

11:25 A.M. Here’s an actual quote from a Disney employee who probably wont be one much longer. He said this to us just before he closed the doors for our “take off” on our Star Tour.

“No food or drinks will be served on this flight. However, you are welcome to whatever you might find under or between the seats. And even if you don’t feel like helping youself, rest assured Disney will still charge you for it.”

11:30 A.M. Becky and I emerge from the ride and can see no sign of Tim or Deb. I am forced to consider the possibility that it was not really a bluff. I wait around for a few more minutes then I find a payphone and try to reach the room, which is when I see them walk past. They’d gotten in line a few minutes after us. So all is well, at least until Tim’s next fit.

12:25 P.M. We ride the Tower of Terror.

I get to confirm something that’s been bothering me for a year now. Last year, when we took this ride, I distinctly recall being dropped three times. I even wrote as much in my vacation memoirs. But all the advertisements for the Tower of Terror insist it’s only two drops. Given I wasn’t in my right mind when I rode it before, I considered the possibility that I could actually be wrong, insofar as Disney probably knows the ride a bit better than I do.

But it IS three. The first drop isn’t from as great a height as the latter two, but it’s a drop nonetheless. Take my word for it.

1:00 P.M. We have a date with Belle. We declare a plot of space along the parade route and wait for the “pre-parade” even though we’re still not sure what the heck that is.

It is now unbearably hot and humid. Standing still in the shade is draining, and standing in the sun is prohibitively dangerous. Tim has consequently decided he’d like to go back to the hotel RIGHT NOW. But we’re not going to go right now, because, dammit, we’re sweating madly for no other reason than to watch this parade, and we’re gonna see it. Even if it doesn’t start for another half an hour.

1:20 P.M. The pre-parade is when a few non-Mulan characters walk along the route and hug people. Belle is not one of the characters. I’m planning to write my congressman about this.

1:30 P.M. We have now endured half an hour of Timmy’s screaming and crying. He is undeniably the most willful child on the planet. Our conversations go like this:

Tim: I want to go back to the hotel!Me: We can’t go back to the hotel.

Tim: I WANT TO!

Me: Well, we’re not going to, okay? Give it up. We have a lunch reservation already and we’re not leaving the park.

Tim: I’m not hungry.

Me: We’re not going. Period.

(Pause)

Tim: I want to go back to the hotel!

Me: No.

Tim: I WANT TO!

Me: No.

Tim: I WANT TO!

Me: No.

(Repeat)

Deb eventually drags Tim away from the curb and into the shade, to a spot where the parade is no longer visible. Of course, as soon as the parade starts, Tim wants to watch it, so she ends up carrying him on her shoulders.

I don’t find the parade all that engaging, although I may have been influenced somewhat by heatstroke.

2:00 P.M. We eat at the 50’s Prime Time Cafe. This is a very, very, very strange place. Each table is a formica kitchen counter with a black-and-white TV at one end, designed to look like the kitchen on a TV show from the 50’s, a time when neither Deb nor I were even alive.

After checking in at the front door, we wait in “Dad’s Den” for our names to be called by “Mom.” If you ever wondered whether Disney really is an equal-opportunity employer, wonder no more, because they even have jobs for bitter old women. We watch a couple whose name has been mis-pronounced absolutely abused by Mom because they didn’t come when they were called. Mom also roams about the restaurant to discipline anyone so bold as to eat with their elbows on the table.

We are not waited on by Mom, however, thank goodness. That job is for “Sis.” Sis is much more pleasant, and she even gives out stickers to anybody who cleans their plate.

Tim, who is still frustrated that we wont give him exactly what he wants as soon as he asks for it, elects not to eat.

3:20 P.M. We go to one of the few rides at Disney/MGM that we didn’t get to do last year but wanted to. It’s called the Backlot Tour. It’s not quite as interesting as it looks, however, but I think that’s because the tour guide doesn’t sell it very well.

The essential conceit of the Backlot Tour is that we’re being shown around the different parts of the Disney property where movies are made, and for much of the tour, this is exactly what we get. The last part is Catastrophe Canyon. We are led to believe that we’ve driven onto a movie set that is in between shots, but that the special effects people don’t know we’re there, so consequently, we’re in incredible danger when there’s a big explosion and an earthquake and a fiery fuel truck and a huge waterfall. Of course, it’s hard for any of us to even get a little excited when our tour guide sounds like she’s showing us a shorted out toaster. Even the kids aren’t all that impressed by this.

4:20 P.M. We find ourselves at the termination of the Backlot Tour and we have no idea at all where we are. We see massive fake stalks of grass to one side and head there. It turns out to be the “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” Playground. This is a fun little area that is decidedly unfriendly to adults, especially ones trying to keep an eye on their children. Kids get to climb on a giant ant, get sniffed by an enormous dog nose, run through an ant hill whose catacombs are pitch black and only five feet tall (You try following a running child through that) and slide down a half-exposed roll of Kodak film (wanna guess who the corporate sponsor for this playground was?) If you ever take your kids to this I recommend letting them run off, counting to ten, and then turning to your spouse and saying “time to go now.” It’ll take you at least forty minutes to find all of your children, which is plenty of time for them to have seen everything.

5:00 P.M. We have almost had enough. Tim wants to ride the Tower of Terror one more time and Becky wants to do Star Tours again, so we split up. I take Tim to the Tower and Deb takes Becky toStar Tours. (Dare you to say that sentence five times fast.)

6:00 P.M. We meet up again at the edge of the park and head back to the hotel. By now, a familiar ache is starting to develop in our feet, similar, I think, to how one must feel when one’s arches collapse. We are tired. I’d love it if we could all go to bed when we get back.

6:30 P.M. Well, Deb gets to lie down at least. It’s my turn to take them to the pool. Given that there’s a bar there, I don’t mind.

8:15 P.M. Back in the room again. I order a pizza, which is the only room service provided here.

If you decide to follow in our footsteps and stay at the Caribbean Beach, don’t order the pizza. It’s sublimely awful. Becky has only three bites, and Tim contents himself with picking off all the sausage bits on all the slices and eating nothing else. Fortunately, we have a lot of leftovers for the ducks.

They have very friendly ducks here. When we woke up there were about twenty of them at our door and we had nothing to feed them. Ducks eat pizza, right?

10:15 P.M. Sleep.

The post What Doesn’t Kill You the First Time Deserves A Second Shot – Day 2 appeared first on Just Laugh.

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The following are some points that, after venturing around the country over the summer, I’d like everyone else to just consider. Maybe I’m asking too much here, but who knows – possibly one or two of my fellow-travelers will agree with me here…

• Could you please try to work with me just a little at the concession stands? Although I understand that vacations are generally expensive, $4.00 for a cup of pop is considered rape back where I come from, especially when you’re buying for several people.
• We’ve all just enjoyed a fantastic event and now we’d all like to go home or back to our hotels, but let’s try to be civil during the process. Mass parking situations can turn simply getting out of the lot into an all-out brawl, but we can all make it a little easier by just working together. If you’re already in one of the outgoing lines, be a nice guy and let others in from the adjacent rows every so often, and if you’re in one of those rows, remember your roots when you finally make it in. None of us are rushing out to go perform open-heart surgery, so try and cooperate here…
• No one in their right mind gets up at seven o’clock in the morning on their vacation, so please stop asking if you can clean my hotel room that early. I make no guarantee of civility toward those who choose to violate this rule, no matter what language you might actually speak.
• If you live in a tourist-heavy area, don’t get upset by the constant barrage of camera-toting, misdirected families who simply came there to have a good time. Just be happy that you get to live there all year long and pray for the day when they go home.
• I’ll promise to stop stealing the hotel towels if you’d only get some that are a tad bit less comparable to sand paper. After a long day in the sun, these things are the final nails in the coffin for many of us…
• Contrary to the beliefs of every waiter and waitress I’ve encountered this summer, you’re not doing me a favor by bringing me my food and drinks –you’re doing your job. I have to work for a living, too, so lose the attitude or you can kiss your tip goodbye.
• As with many vacation-goers, I like to take lots of pictures, however I don’t want to take lots of pictures with you in them. When it’s obvious that I’m working on a shot, please either wait for me to finish or at least quicken your pace when crossing my path. Nevertheless, if you enjoy irritating complete strangers, walk directly up to my subject and just stare at it until I throw down my camera and strangle you.
• The lanes on the freeway are designated as follows: far left – passing lane, middle lanes – general traffic flow / speed limit, right lane – slow as hell troglodytes who shouldn’t even be on the road in the first place.
• On the other hand, don’t get ticked off at me when you have to slow down to 90 mph because the cars around me happen to be following the above rules. There’s a limit to how much you can break the speed laws before you’re just considered an idiot.
• I don’t know about how things work at your house, but in the unlikely event that somebody misses in the bathroom, we clean up after ourselves – this goes double when you’re out in public, such as at a theme park. I suppose it’s possibly that there was an earthquake or something while you were doing your thing, but do the rest of us a favor and wipe the rest off the seat (and the walls…) when you’re done…
• When you’re contemplating the next destination of your group of 20+ people, try to get everyone at least somewhat away from the dead-center of the walkway, sidewalk, etc… Your decision of whether to get pizza or burgers tonight should have no influence on how long it takes me to get toSpace Mountain.
• Brief Warning: if you ask me how to get somewhere while I’m on vacation in a new city, chances are I’ll simply make something up because I have no idea where it is, either! My sense of humor can be sick like that sometimes…
• No matter how hungry the other members of my party are, we’re not eating at Denny’s.
• Traffic jams on the freeway suck, but for God’s sake, stay in your own vehicles! Nothing irritates me more than having to wait even longer after the line finally starts moving again because the elderly man ahead of me is taking pictures of his wife posing outside the car with the stopped traffic in the background.
• I don’t throw the ashes from my campfires in front of your car, so please figure out how to use the ash tray instead of throwing your cigarette butts out the window.
• Please share the hot tub at the hotel! Our day was just as exhausting as yours and as much as we’d like a chance to unwind, it’s just not polite to jump into a hot tub with a bunch of strangers. The sky’s the limit if you’re the only ones around, but if there’s already a line, let’s keep in down to a half an hour each, eh?
• Keep your vacation to yourself. If you want to get smashed at every restaurant and party all week, knock your socks off, but keep it within your own clique. Don’t bother me and I won’t bother you…or call the police.
• Staying with the theme of minimal outside interaction – just because I’m sitting next to you on the plane doesn’t mean that I actually want to talk to you and get to know you. I’m sure you’re a great person and live a fascinating life, but I’ve got one last deadline to meet before I’m allowed to go to Disney World, so please shut up and leave me alone!
• Parents, please do a little homework about the attractions before you visit them. Just because your older children loved the Jaws and King-Kongrides at Universal Studios doesn’t mean that your 2-year-old twins are going to have the same reaction…there’s something about mechanical sharks and giant, subway car-eating apes that just scares the shit out of infants…
• Yes, I was checking out your girlfriend. She’s hot and barely dressed – what did you expect?

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As a result, all Michiganders have the annoying habit of showing where they live by holding up their right hand and pointing to the location with their left hand.

I really hate it when they do this.

I’m from Indiana, which is shaped like a painfully-pointed boot. So when Michiganders show me where they live, I point to the part of my state that will kick them in their Florida if they don’t stop.

Originally called “Michilimackinac” by French missionaries in the 1600s, the name was later shortened to Mackinac. However, because the French never spell things the way they sound, Mackinac is actually pronounced “Mackinaw.”

This is something the island residents take very seriously. It’s a major faux pas (pronounced “foe pah” — see how that works?) to mispronounce the name of their home, and they get very annoyed whenever anyone is crass enough to call it “Mackinack.”

Although Mackinac Island has a rich and colorful history, a relaxed, friendly atmosphere, and is known for its world-class fudge, the thing that sticks out in everyone’s mind is the lack of cars on the island.

“How’s come there’s no cars on this here island?!” first-time visitors gawk.

With the exception of a couple emergency and maintenance vehicles, there are no electric or gasoline powered vehicles anywhere. Anyone who wants to get around the island does so on foot, by bicycle, or on horseback. But you will see dozens of teams of horses pulling carts or taxis throughout the day. This also means the horses will stop in the middle of the street, and treat it like a paved toilet.

“What is that SMELL?!” the first-time visitors shout, wrinkling their noses.

Although horse deposits make crossing the street an adventure in itself, it adds an extra level of excitement during high-speed bicycle police pursuits.

Walking is free, of course, but in the true spirit of island entrepreneurship, visitors can rent bicycles for the day or horses by the hour. When my wife and I visited Mackinac Island a few years ago, we went horseback riding for the first time. We loved it so much, we decided to try it again on this trip.

I’d like to point out that I will not name the stable we used. While I only had a couple extremely minor complaints on this trip, I don’t want them to read this column and assign me a horse named Thundering Death the next time we’re there.

We chose Western style riding over English style, since English saddles don’t have a horn, which is useful for holding on (the horn is also useful for beeping at other riders when they’re being jerks). A couple stablehands brought our horses out, and gave us some important information about them. The horses, not themselves. Stablehands are very private about their own lives.

“Sandy is a good leader, so you ride in front,” they told my wife. They brought my horse to me. “Jake just likes to stop and eat.”

“Sounds like Jake and I have a lot in common,” I said.

“No, you can’t let him do that. If you don’t control him, he’ll think he can boss you around. Just pull his reins if he tries it.”

Although we chose the unguided tour, a guide rode out with us to show us the way to the trails. As we headed out of town, she told my wife, “Make sure you keep Sandy on the right side of the road.”

I couldn’t resist. “If we were riding English style, would we ride on the left side of the road?”

My wife laughed, but our guide just stared blankly at me.

“No, you would still ride on the right.”

I tried to explain, so she wouldn’t think I was a complete moron. “I meant that in England, they drive on the left side, so English style riding would have the same–”

“Yes, I know.” Too late. She thought I was a moron.

It’s been my experience that horse people are members of some kind of fanatical cult. They love their animals, tolerate humans, but despise morons who crack horse jokes. And apparently I had just offended their queen. I was sure she was sending telepathic messages to Jake to throw me off and trample me.

I didn’t crack another joke the whole time our guide was with us, but the damage had been done. Jake didn’t appreciate my humor either, and abused me for the rest of the trip. I discovered he had an annoying habit of falling way behind Sandy and then trotting to catch up with her.

He did this because he realized I had foolishly asked for my stirrups to be lengthened, thus insuring I couldn’t raise myself out of the saddle far enough to relieve any of the . . . painful bouncing . . . I felt when he trotted.

“Jake, go catch up with Sandy,” I told him the first time he fell behind. “Let’s go.”

“Tell him giddyup,” my wife hollered to me.

“That’s stupid. They only say giddyup in Westerns,” I hollered back.

I felt like a goober saying “Giddyup,” and thought it was one of the least macho things I could actually tell a horse, short of discussing my feelings with it. Besides, real cowboys say things like “Onward ho!” or “Yoiks and away!” or something equally cool.

“Move it,” I cried. “Run, Jake! Run like the wind!”

Nothing.

Jake continued moseying along at his usual pace, waiting for me to drop my guard so he could eat everything in sight. I sighed and looked around for any cowboys who might laugh at me.

“Giddyup.”

Jake’s ears perked up, so I said it louder.

“Giddyup Jake.” He trotted up to Sandy, bouncing me the entire way. Once he caught up, he backed off again. She had “used the island” during the trip, so I couldn’t blame him for wanting to keep a safe distance.

“Get up!” I tried. It was less silly than giddyup, and he actually responded to it. “Get up, Jake.” It wasn’t “Yoiks and away!” but at least it wasn’t “Giddyup.”

“I think I’m getting the hang of this,” I called to my wife, three miles ahead of me.

And it was true! I was growing more confident with each painful bounce. I was one dusty trail ride from becoming a true “Yoiks and away!” cowboy, and was positive I would soon become an expert at riding horseback.

Or is that riding horsebaw?

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