Friday, June 13, 2008

Sartre Was Right

Well, Sartre was right about some things anyway. I don't agree with the whole atheism thing but hey, whatever floats yer boat. I do, however, agree with the statement "hell is other people." Normally I would disagree, hell would be a lack of other people because others make life worth living.
That is to say, life is worth living when you're not surrounded by complete assholes, obnoxious children and oblivious adults.
They should have a warning posted on every Disney entryway: Welcome to Disney World! We'll take your money but we won't correct your inappropriate behaviour.
Assholes, ugh, I can hardly even stand it.
This is what happened. We were waiting for a bus at Epcot, in the evening. It was extra magic hours, so we were all hot and exhausted and ready to kill anyone who threatened our ability to get on the damn bus and back to the resort. If you've ever experienced the Disney transportation system, you'll know what I mean. They pack people onto the buses like sardines, and if you're not one of the first 30 or so people on the bus, you're probably going to be standing next to the little girl with the mouse ears, along with the runny nose and questionable cough or Uncle Larry, the one with the long strands of stray chest hair that rub up against your arm as you cling to the metal hand rails with your sweaty hands.
Well we were second in line, so our seats on the bus were guarenteed, since there were only four people in front of us. Finally, after sitting and waiting for this bus for anywhere between 30 and 45 minutes (the buses supposedly run every 20 minutes...), the bus pulled in and let on a woman in a power chair.
Then out of NOWHERE a group of five girls comes up and cuts right in front of the people standing in front of us waiting to get on the bus. I was completely horrified, and I saw on my mother's face that she was none too happy either. I didn't say anything until the driver gave the all clear and these young women (wearing dresses that left NOTHING to the imagination) boarded the bus with no qualm.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?" I said, being echoed in some variation of that statement by my mother and several other very angry Disney-goers. The girls, naturally, ignored it. People muttered things and shot them dirty glances.
I loathe injustice, and cutting in line is so juvenile. Who does that?? So I took it upon myself to give those young ladies a piece of my mind.
"YOU CAN'T JUST CUT AN ENTIRE LINE OF PEOPLE! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"
"Leave us alone, we didn't cut!"
"YOU ABSOLUTELY DID! YOU BETTER GIVE UP YOUR SEATS TO THE PEOPLE WHO WAITED IN LINE FOR THIS BUS!"
"WHY DON'T YOU LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE!"
I swear, it's one of my favourite past-times. But swearing around little kids is unforgiveable. If my niece of nephew had been there, well, I'm not a violent person but I probably would have done a lot more then yell at them.
"WHY DON'T YOU WATCH YOUR MOUTHS AROUND THE KIDS! THIS IS DISNEY WORLD, A PLACE FOR FAMILIES!"
"LEAVE US ALONE!"
"I GUESS IT'S MAKE YOUR OWN RULES DAY!"
and that's when my mother mentioned to the driver that these "young ladies" (who I had started to refer to as ladies of the night) had cut everyone and the driver, naturally "didn't see anything."
How freakin convenient. Disney, you're doing your patrons a real disservice by allowing behaviour like that to go on. I know it's difficult to enforce, but if you SEE something, DO NOT TELL A PAYING CUSTOMER YOU DID NOT. I work in customer service too, I know we're trying to make everyone happy. But you can't. You can, however, make sure that justice is served and teenagers who probably should have been spanked a few more times don't get away with being miserable brats. Parents, don't let your kids get away with non-sense like that. Just don't. Raise them right.
That's not to say that yelling at them was right. But what they did was absolutely wrong, and they so deserved it.

Yesterday was my birthday too. It was a great day, I got one of those "Happy Birthday *insert name here* Walt Disney World Where Dreams Come True" pins so everyone treated me nice and they sang to me at lunch in Italy in Epcot. It was lovely.
One of our bus drivers (a good one) got off the bus when he picked us up on the way to animal kingdom and goes "Is it really your birthday today, Rachel?" and I said "yep" and he got back on the bus, I stepped on and he said "HEY EVERYBODY, THIS IS RACHEL TODAY IS HER BIRTHDAY!" and they all cheered. When we exited at Animal Kingdom, I got off the bus, and the bus driver followed me and announced to the entire bus stop (an extremely crowded bus stop, if you know Disney you know what I mean) "HEY EVERYBODY, THIS IS RACHEL TODAY IS HER BIRTHDAY!" and they cheered more. I hate being the centre of attention but it certainly was a very nice way to celebrate turning 19. I got a free cookie at the Land in Epcot (near soarin) because they give away free cookies for birthdays. That may have been the best part of the day for me.

Something really odd, and very upsetting, happened on Wednesday. We were waiting in the line for The Great Movie Ride at MGM, one of my favourite rides because of the movie clips at the end (I love the AFI movie lists and stuff like that). We had just gotten into the part of the line where you see clips from various movies, Indiana Jones, Alien, Mary Poppins, things like that, when the woman in the group behind us answered her cell phone. I admit I was slightly annoyed that she answered her phone, even if it wasn't a real movie it was still kind of annoying. The conversation went something like this, one sided obviously:
"Whaja mean wherm I at?" "I'm in Disney World" "What happened?!" "WHAT?!!!"
And then she collapsed on the ground. Everyone in the line stopped and stared as what appeared to be her husband and her son tried to hold her up while she sobbed into the cell phone. "My mama?? Not my mama! That bastard finally killed her! Oh what happened what happened..."
What I, and others, gathered from the eavesdrippin we did... someone murdered this poor woman's mother. Not just any someone. It appeared to be her step father.
How does something like that happen?
It's so way not okay at all to kill ANYONE, least of all someone's mama. It was very traumatic, to say the least.
I just occurred to me that this is the first post that I mentioned my name in. Weird.

Well, this is my last night in Disney, sadly. Back to the grindstone tomorrow night. Ugh work... I don't even want to think about it.
Stay safe out there!!

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