Ok, since we’re on the subject of lines, I got a story for you. It was only a few years ago…in the land of Disney. It was a busy day at the park, and we had been having poor luck with rides breaking down. (In fact, this wasn’t long after our Tower of Terror experience.) Everywhere we went, it was especially crowded. No. Let me elaborate. You could not walk anywhere without stepping on exactly 5 small children, and someone’s straggling grandmother. Don’t ask me how I calculated those numbers…just trust me. They’re accurate.
We waded through the masses, trying desperately not to be run over by an army of designer strollers and obese people on fat-carts. I mean seriously…c’mon chunky. If you’re overweight maybe you should think about walking instead of cruising around on your personal fat-mobile. And don’t even get me started on the strollers! Disneyland was not made for strollers. When I first went to Disneyland I was only 2, and I didn’t have a stroller. I walked dang-it. And when I got cranky and tired my dad carried me like a real man, and not some yuppie pansy. But I digress…
With the poor luck and long lines we had encountered, we searched for a ride with a decent wait time. We finally decided on Pirates of the Caribbean as the wait time was listed below an hour. We stood in the line and began our journey towards eventual ride-dom. The line had been zig-zagged and strung out quite a ways from the actual ride. Ropes had been used to corral us like the cattle that we were. About 20 minutes passed by. And then, the strangest thing happened. As we followed the line, the line disappeared. Actually, “disappeared” doesn’t do it justice. It evaporated. The line literally vanished. All of a sudden, it was just gone. There was no one in front of us. And with the exception of a couple of confused people, there was no one behind us. We stood in the middle of the street, looking around with stupefied looks on our faces. Were we being watched? Was this some sort of Disneyland test used to discover the results of poor trafficking and line management? I may never know.
As we walked aimlessly, having completely wasted 20 minutes of our lives, we overheard that the ride may have broken down, which could have lead to the line’s annihilation dispersal. It really was the weirdest feeling. You think you’re going somewhere, and then all of a sudden…you’re not. Kind of like life after college.
Later in the day, we would in fact ride the ride…only to get stuck in the middle…for over half an hour… Shyeah. I can pretty much tell you every single detail about every pirate in that portion of the ride. And I’ll tell you what… Those pirates are persistent. They just keep shooting at each other endlessly. Over, and over, and over… At least I had the redhead to look at.