Speaking of Cinderella Castle…
I maintain a longstanding tradition in my family, passed down from my grandmother, of Rejecting Reality in favor of A Fantastical World Of My Own Choosing, Thank You Very Much. This can’t be surprising; I mean, I looooooooooooove Walt Disney World. Duh.
Life being what it is, I am forced to keep one foot in the Real World, and when I’m there, I am often gently teased about the rest of me. I don’t mind; my head is in the clouds because that’s where I like it. Manic Pixie Dream Girls are my people and I would thank the media to stop being so mean to us all the time.
All of this is to set up a conversation Pat and I had at Trader Sam’s (so I already had the home turf advantage) in April. He was, wisely, agreeing with me that WDW is SUPER AWESOME and I have 100% converted him to WDW love… BUT he really wants to travel to other places, too.
I didn’t disagree with this statement outright – there are certainly other travel destinations that pique my interest. But I couldn’t help but note wistfully that I wished I could be at WDW all the time.
“Sure, but there are lots of other amazing places in the world,” Pat pointed out. “You should experience them.”
“But those are real places,” I replied.
He raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t a real place?”
“Nope,” I said, probably making that annoying smug face I reflexively fall into when I feel I’m about to make a really solid point, “this is a made-up place. Other places were formed organically. They already existed, and then people came to them. This wasn’t a place. It was a swamp. It was nothing, and then Walt Disney came along and made a bunch of stuff up and built a castle on top of the swamp and…”
I stopped. My eyes grew wide. I slammed my hand down on the table. “I BUILT THIS KINGDOM FROM NOTHING” I said –
“OTHER KINGS SAID IT WAS DAFT TO BUILD A CASTLE ON A SWAMP” I said, gesticulating wildly –
“BUT I BUILT IT ALL THE SAME” I said, sloshing my drink around –
“IT SANK INTO THE SWAMP!” I gasped out, trying not to hyperventilate, “SO I BUILT A SECOND ONE” –
And then Pat started to laugh, and responded with “That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp” – and then I started to laugh, and that’s the story of how we discovered that Monty Python and the Holy Grail was about Walt Disney World all along.
How’s that for a fan theory?
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