January/February Trip Report Day Eleven: THE FINAL CHAPTER, AKA Incessant, Never-ending Whining

Number of Pins Traded for: 8
Number of Miles Walked: 5.82

We’ve done it; we’ve reached the final day in this trip report from 1997 February. I bet some of you thought this day would never come! Well, to those naysayers, I’d like to blame my tardiness in the past nine months on the following (yes — in the same time it took me to write 11 blog posts, I could’ve created life; no, that wasn’t one of my excuses): being laid off, looking for a new job, moving to a new state, starting a new job, laziness, an over-flowing DVR, travel, sleeping, drinking, floating, and otherwise living life to its fullest. Moving forward, I’ll try and stop all of that nonsense.

So there we were, Tuesday, February 4th, waking up on our last day of vacation, always a shitty feeling, when I realized that I felt shitty for another reason as well: I was most definitely sick. Whatever had started sneaking up on me in the days before had finally overtaken my Courvoisiugh-weakened immune system. Twas not a good morning at all.

We packed up our belongings (no small feat, as you can imagine), leaving probably enough food behind to stock a local soup kitchen for a month. And another shocker: my suitcase came to 55 pounds.

No idea why my suitcase weighed so much.

One down-side of checking your luggage at the resort: they take that weight limit seriously (and I understand why — they don’t want to be hit with the overage fees), whereas usually at the airport, if I come in at 53 pounds, I can bat my lashes, remove a scarf to make it look like I tried really hard to lessen the bag’s weight, and then the ticket agent agrees to let it slide.

Not so with Disney airline check-in CMs.

So there I am, full body aches, opening my suitcase on the curb, desperately looking for anything heavy that I could actually fit in my carry-on, and finally ending up with a 50 pound suitcase and what felt like a 67 pound carry-on tote bag. FML.

Goodbye, Wilderness Lodge totem 😦

Next up on the list of my first world problems (after figuring out what to eat for free breakfast in the Concierge Lounge, because you know it wasn’t going to be the oatmeal again): trying to see if the Concierge Level Concierge (CLC) could find out when and where Scoop was to be trading in the Magic Kingdom that morning. Sadly, that was a question beyond the magical powers of CLC. Useless!

No boats today.

As if my day couldn’t get any worse (woe is me!!!), we reached the boat dock only to find that no boats were running that morning due to fog. Back up the hill we trudged to the bus stop…

Once finally at the Magic Kingdom, we tried once more — this time at Guest Relations — to find out how to best stalk Scoop. This pathological liar pleasant CM tried to tell me that she didn’t have access to that information. “Bullshit!” I cried, and yet it did no good. (For the record — all they have to do is call the Character Hotline or whatever it’s called; it’s like their Batphone. They have this. WHY DON’T THEY USE IT?!)

We finally, finally found a random HELPFUL CM who was familiar with the Batphone and was able to tell us that Scoop would be out on Main Street at 1:00. Fat lot of good that did us, since we needed to be on the 1:00 UnMagical Express to the damned airport. FMLx2.

I want to be #1000!!!

After a spin on Space Mountain, we wanted a leisurely turn on the TTA. Nope, temporarily closed. Sure, we were able to make our way over to the Haunted Mansion for a ride there, but you know what happened then? The ride broke down while we were on it.

Wait, that’s not the bad part — I LOVE being stuck on the Haunted Mansion. If I could, I’d rig it to crash all the time, just so I could start hanging out there, maybe I’d take a nap, maybe I’d wear my cat-burglar suit and sneak out of my doom buggy to explore unnoticed eventually crafting a small fort in a corner of the attic where I could spend long weekends and holidays, whatever — nay, the bad part was that just when I thought I’d have a primo opportunity to bulk up on my “quality” dark ride photos, our doom buggy stopped two cars away from the hitchhiking ghosts scene. Two cars! Two fucking cars!!! Instead of one of the best photo-ops ever, we got to be trapped at the tunnel entrance staring at the back of another doom buggy. I was getting fever rages.

Mutherfucker.

The wildest ride in the wilderness!

After that, I mostly maintained my cool while we rode Pirates one last time, then Thunder Mountain, and then took the long way to Main Street via the train. And that was that. The end. Back to the Wilderness Lodge for our bus to the airport. Had lunch at the Chili’s and said goodbye to My Mother, as her flight to Boston took off a few hours before mine to Raleigh.

I then used my time wisely to sit alone at Chili’s, drinking two-for-one margaritas and tweeting with Chili’s social media folks about how much I love them and how lonely I am and how I don’t want to go home and can I get free drinks? They were pretty friendly, but that was a no-go on free margs. Bastards.

One last pouty face selfie for us with the damned crane.

To put the cherry on top, as no one was home to collect me from the airport once I landed, I had to take a cab to our house 35 minutes in Rural Tobacco Farmland, NC. As if that weren’t a pleasant enough experience, I had the added thrill of having my cabbie comment, “gee… that’s an awfully big house for a young woman to live in all alone…” Seriously?! Seriously?!?! I don’t live there alone! I swear! I have a giant manly boyfriend and five pet honey badgers!!!! Honestly — who says that?! FMLx3.

My ferocious honey badger.

Psych! Sh’yeah, like I’d really cap off the most amazing trip ever by moaning, groaning, and anticipating my rape and murder!

I know — let’s do the Scooby Doo ending!

… My cabbie turned out to be old man Withers from the haunted amusement park!

…

Nay, reality is the mega-happy ending. I must take this moment to thank My Mother for what was truly one of — if not the — most amazing trips of my life. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. To be able to spend 11 whole days in my favouritest place in the world with my favouritest person in the world, I am truly blessed.

Perhaps my lolly-gagging in the completion of this trip report was that I never wanted the experience to be truly behind me. Each month, as I wrote up another chapter, I was able to relive it, review the photos taken from that day, and be reminded just how special each moment was.

Now, I’m lucky once again to be embarking upon my next magical(TM) trip with My Mother — this very Saturday!!! Thus maybe it’s okay to finally end this story, because we’re about to make a whole new one 🙂

Mom, I can’t wait!!! I love you.

/non-snarky sentimental me