Scene:
Yacht and Beach Club pier, early, very early Monday Morning.
Weather:
Sunny, with a chance of Meatheads.
Motivation:
Smidgy; none needed. Not a morning person.
( re. Dorothy)
Motivation:
Nebo; amused and bemused.
(re. verbalizes possible datum concerning whereabouts of said Dorothy)
Crowd milling; Take 1.
After standing next to the lighthouse with my mind wandering, waiting for the Friendship boat, I noticed that Smidgy was what looked like trying to give whatever info she had on the Studios to a small group of probable newbys.
Then I saw a woman that was clearly not part of the conversation move over and just interupt Diane in mid sentance, and I wished I had worn my hearing aids today.
I scootched a little bit closer.
It didn't take long to figure out what was transpiring.
Smidgy was telling them that the fastpasses don't expire at all for that day you receive them, and this busybody jumped in and said over Smidgy, "Yes they do!"
Diane tried to be patient at first, but this witch was begging to BE a patient. She was the poster child for loud obnoxious people that have to constantly interfer even when they have no idea what they are talking about.
Not that we needed confirmation, but the bus driver Saturday that pointed out the deer to us even made a point of telling us that.
And Diane tried to point out what the employee said to the Wicked Witch of the West, but just barely made a dent.
Now, when it comes to matters of confrontations like this, Diane is tougher than a 2 dollar steak, throw in the fact that you are interupting me, AND it's still very early in the morning, well I guess she had been told off and pushed around for the last time this trip.
I walked up and just calmly said, "Believe me, when it comes to all things Disney, she knows all." nodding to Diane.
The witch then glared at me, but I kept walking till I got a ways out of the sun. Then she tried once more to take over Diane's class again.
"Well, you can't count on it. It all depends on the personality."
I didn't know if she meant the personality of the fp user, or the cast member, but it didn't matter, Diane had now had enough.
"Well if personality is an issue, then I can see why you might have been rejected!"
I almost doubled over, so did this young couple that Smidgy was talking to originally and the woman's face got as red as the sun, but she gave the classic,"harumph" and walked away. Then the boat pulled up.
7:30 is a great time for a boat ride, but it doesn't get us to the Studios early enough for our liking, even though it's EE, it's already pretty crowded and we had to do some fancy footwork to make it to a respectable post position for rope drop.
Waiting for the opening, we caught this older man's gaze, he was looking and reading a t-shirt a kid was wearing and shaking his head in disgust. Diane could read it but every time I tried, the rotten kid would turn the other way.
It was one of those ones that said something like, "Your mother pays me to beat up Honor Students". Something like that, I'm sure Smidgy will correct me, but we started talking to the older couple a bit about respect and whatever has happened to it.
Then we were off, at the end of the street, the crowd split into two groups, Toy Story Maniacs to the left and Tower of Terror, Rock 'n Roller Coaster to the right. It was pretty evenly divided.
We were in the Toy Story group, and it's all I can do to keep up in the stupid clip clops. I just stared at the ground the entire way there, I knew if I went down, I might not get a chance to get back up again till Toy Story 4 comes out.
By the time we got there, I was shot but we went right in, and who is right in front of us in line, but the old couple. I was impressed.
Then another miracle happened; I actually beat her, even though I could barely see the targets from coming in out of the bright sun. No, the scores were not things of beauty, but I didn't care if the final score for us was 12 to 11, the fact is I beat her for a change. She then got in line to get fastpasses, our fp time was already pushed back till 12:45, they were going that fast.
Then we were off to Muppets, followed by the Not so bad Movie Ride.
Finally, it was time to be Stupido at the Studios.
And I was.
Beauty and the Beast or the Indy stunt show. Which one? They each have 3 shows during the day, yet each time they start at almost the same time and I was already getting tired of crisscrossing the park, so I voted for the Indy Stunt show. She went along.
Killing the Beast would have been a lot safer.
On the way to Indy, we stil had some time, so we squeezed in Star Tours since it was going to close soon, for that we just walked on, then went over to get good seats for Indy.
Hah, it was already packed inside the theatre, I keep forgetting this is still July, but there were still some seats waaay on the far left side in the front, and since once again I can't see anything coming out of the sun, Diane helped lead me down the frightful stairs.
But I was thinking, and when the show started, I was thinking some more. '
Again, the last time we saw the whole show, I was going to volunteer, I tried, tried really hard. But the MC chose that woman next to me instead, who goes by the name of Smidgy, or Indiana Diana.
And this was her second time getting picked to be on the stage.
All I had was a disposable camera at the time, but she's in here.
The only thing I can think of now, is that my euphoria was still running at a very high level having escaped Sports with all my blood still inside me, and having the car thing taken care of much easierly (easierly?) than I expected. And we haven't really come across much in the way of tour groups today yet.
I asked Smidgy if she was going to try again to get on stage, but she said no, she's had enough excitement in the last few days.
Do you think I would have taken her statement to heart?
Do you think I agreed with her?
Do you think I can think for myself?
No, no, and no. And why can't I try to get picked, it might be fun!
Besides, there's over two thousand people in here, there's no way in the world that cute MC is gonna pick this bald, middle aged moron.
How is he a moron? Let me count the ways.
1. What's the point if we don't have a camera?
2. My vision has gotten worse, YOU'RE ASKING FOR IT!
3. I didn't bring my hearing aids.
4. I'm wearing CLIP CLOPS!
5. I'm accident prone. Oh yes, much better when it happens on stage.
6. I'm running out of vikes!
7. And probably the most important reason, I never really paid attention to when Diane was picked, I thought they all just went behind the stage for briefing and get their costumes.
Let's look at some of those reasons for a second.
I don't need the hearing aids in the park, the attractions are all plenty loud, I only need them when I am in a One on One situation, like when somebody is giving me instructions.
And I have a hard enough time walking straight with shoes on, in these stupid things that don't fit and hang on my feet, I'm a total menace to myself and all those around me.
So, as you can see, with all these intelligent reasons to just stay seated and don't say a word, this moron in the shorts, red tank top and FLIP FLOPS that don't fit is now jumping up and down waving his arms and yelling, "Pick Me, Pick me".
As far over on the side that we were, I don't think she ever really saw me, Diane disagreed with me on that.
She went through the crowd and picked at least 7 people, called them up and had them do stupid stunts and finally said she needed just ONE more person.
This time I had given up, was just standing there and she walked right over to the side in front of me, pointed and said "You, in the red tank top, come join us."
Wow, she picked me after all.
And now I'm terrified! I don't want to go. What was I thinking. Diane, how could you let me do this to myself? Maybe some scouts will be in the audience. "And the winner for best actor in the drama category.....is Nebo".
I got up and walked down the two steps to the bottom, then made a left and very carefully walked up the 4 or 5 steps that led up to the stage.
Then I started walking over to the middle by the cute MC.
She yelled over for me to stop.
Huh?
I was at the end of the line of volunteers, and she told me she needed me to make my best muscle man body builder look.
I almost died.
I don't have a muscle man, body builder pose.
Mainly because I don't have a muscle man, body builder body.
How emabarrasing.
But I tried.
Thank God we didn't have a camera with us.
Hollywood flashed before my eyes.
This was bad enough, but we now get to the point of where I really wish I would have paid more attention to what happened when Smidgy was doing this crap.
After the Mc was done abusing us, we're suppose to go behind the scenes for the briefing and instructions, right?
After turning to face us, she said, "Ok, I want you all to go to the right side of the theater, exit at the end and then go ALL the WAY BACK UP THE STAIRS TO THE VERY BACK AND MEET THE CAST MEMBERS WHO WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU OUTSIDE THE THEATER AT THE TOP.
Huh?
I only caught half of it, but as I was putting it together in mind what I thought I heard, they all took off at a jog, and I had to run just to catch up.
My mind is already thinking the worst, I am getting pretty strong vibes on what is eventually going to happen, and I got the feeling it's not going to be pretty.
Thankfully, I was saved.
People were still coming in, and the thouroghbreds I'm running with have to slow down to a walk to let these late arrivers come by on the way back up.
What I really wanted to do was grab the belt of the guy in front of me, kinda let him lead me back up, but I have a great imagination with a split second timer and I could just imagine if I reached out for it and missed a bit lower and how that is going to look to him.
When we got to the top, folks already had their robes on, signing release forms and took off once again to rejoin the stage.
I was the last one, I just nodded my head in faux understanding of all that was said, signed my name and then needed help putting on my robe because my mind was no longer functioning, based on the last thing that was said to me.
"Ok Steve, we need you to run back down the center aisle to the stage, then cut to the left and climb the stairs fast as you can without hurting yourself."
Even the belt guy is gone, belt was no use anymore anyway under the robe, and I'm totally the last man standing up there, and they're getting antsy.
A smart man would have bailed right then.
An intelligent man would have taken off his robe, said thanks, but no thanks.
As Harry Callahan once said, "A man's got to know his limitations."
Apparently, I didn't qualify.
I ran back inside, headed to the stairs.
"Smack, smack, smack, smack, smack,,,,"
Damn clip clops, I didn't need any more attention drawn to myself!
At the top of the stairs, I paused briefly. I'm tying to go by memory, now that I can't see a thing again from being outside in the bright sunshine putting on the robes and signing papers.
Nope, can't see, I'm not thinking too well right now either, knowing that 2000 people are about to watch a guy tumble to what is almost certain to be a very painful end.
If they were real stairs, I might have a chance.
You can get in a rhythm if they are all the same.
But no, these are fake stairs. Part walkway, part stairs.
Walk two feet forward, then down two steps, then three feet forward, then down 2 steps. There is no rhythm.
I considered the easy way out, just let my body sumersault from the top all the way down and get it over with.
But I took them at a slow run, after all.
I knew sometimes I was going to fall farther than I thought, and sometimes I'm going to land on the very edge and tried to prepare myself for all these things.
2 steps down and I missed.
Landed on the edge and had to spin around to keep from ruining my ankle. I was totally out of balance now and the "Oh my Gods'" from the folks sitting right by me didn't help at all but call almost the entire theater's attention to me.
As I spun on down, I smacked one guy on the shoulder and was again about to fall when I just jumped way down, landed good and kept jumping and leaping all the way down without hitting an "edge" again till I got to the bottom.
Oh, I still fell down the stairs, I just never ended up prone on my back.
I think Woody would have called it "Falling with Style."
There is no doubt that people thought I was another stunt guy, when I reached the bottom I heard much applause.
I was ectastic!
No, not "I'm ready for my close-up now Mr. DeMille", but ecstatic that I was still alive.
Then I ran to the steps that lead up to the stage, and promptly stubbed the front of the right clip clop on the face of the stair and went down, hard, face forward.
I hopped up immediately, glanced over at the Mc and she has a look of panic on her face, I jumped up and went and stood in line.
I gave the guy standing next to me a look like, "What?"
It was so hot that day we were told we didn't have to wear the hoods if we didn't want to.
Wanna guess who tried to keep the hood on as much as he could to hide his identity?
Crap, I was wishing I had a ski mask too.
It was when we were pretending to be merchants in the market that I felt the blood running back down my leg.
I knew it was coming, it was the same shin I bashed at MK when it wanted to play with concrete, but there wasn't anything I could do about it now.
Spoiler alert:
There is a regulay stunt man that is in with you, and when we actually were behind the scenes, he asked me what that was all about, the entrance. I think he thought I might be trying to upstage him, but I just told him, "I always wanted to try this, and I'm blind." Then I picked up my robe and showed himi the blood still running down my leg.
"Believe?"
Before the final scene, once again we are told to run off the stage like Diane is doing I think in the picture, but after saying this, the cast member grabbed me by the arm and said, "You, walk."
Back at the top, I took off my robe, they gave me more napkins to clean my leg but I said I was fine, but no way am I gonna try to go back down the "Stairs of Peril" and sit with Diane for the rest of the show.
Sometimes standing room at the back of a theater is highly underrated!
goodnight, and God bless