This essay first appeared in the Washington Post

Here I am admiring our autograph from chubby little Dale, one of those overly accommodating chipmunks (or beavers or whatever they were) from that old cartoon. I quickly huddle with my kids about strategy to get access to other characters, weighing each one’s fame and line length. I’m lobbying for Goofy. I’d like to meet him.

At one point there is a shoving incident among families waiting for Minnie Mouse, who expertly feigns shock then shakes a big soft finger at the offenders, suggesting in her easy manner that she’s seen it all too often. Reality.

This is where I’m excitedly describing to my patient wife how nice Minnie was and how Pluto’s autograph includes little pictures made out of letters in his name. Then there, right there, you can see I’ve spotted Captain Hook scratching himself immodestly (thankfully with his good hand). That’s when it occurs to me that, hey, these are pimply-faced kids in a slick costumes. They get us to believe in these characters, then in costume copies of the characters.  Layers of reality.

Here I am again, and its gotten rainy and chilly and I’m juggling food court meals and heading back to our motel room in what might be seen as the working-class neighborhood of Disney World – the All-Star resort. My mood is not bad, but it’s headed there. It takes a speeding monorail in that direction when I confront the door.

This door does not open automatically dammit, and after three days at Disney World I’ve grown accustomed to having doors swing or slide or pop or lift or fold open as I approach, or be opened by a smiling “cast” member. Pushing it causes me to spill a drink.

I grumble, punctuate that with a mild expletive and trudge away, enduring the glares of visitors who, I imagine, worry that my sourness is diminishing their valuable moments of Disneyization. “And it’s raining and cold,” I mutter to the people in the swimming pool. The thought returns. The real world is out there waiting for us.

Here’s the whole family at the much ballyhooed Rainforest restaurant in Downtown Disney, one of those places where you wait for hours and the menu is unmanageably long and portions unmanageably big. Right next to us an animotronic ape wakes up and bellows and moves very convincingly. My kids hardly bat an eye. This is the minors compared to Disney, and the thought is back: Reality. How will the playground up the road at home and Jerry’s Pizza measure up… or broken toys, bad television reception and stuffed animals that don’t talk or move.

I’m not one of the folks who hates Disney, who fear Disney will take over the world, or is ruining our children with a bastardization of classic tales (Hey, yea, let’s show them the real story, where the queen hungers for Snow White’s internal organs and eventually dies from being forced to wear red hot shoes)  I like Disney stuff and this place is very good. But this is where it has begun to concern me that it might be too good, and I start my search for flaws, for reality.

Here I am in the bathroom with my son, the spotless bathroom where things all go off automatically like characters in an animated film. And there in the corner I happily spot some graffiti with a claim about Mickey’s sexual preferences.

Here we are on one of the clean, efficient shuttle buses. And this is a human named Donald, who has a look on his face suggesting that he thinks working here with this name and having it spelled out in large letters on his name tag is a cruel joke. He doesn’t look comfortable in the bright green and purple driver’s uniform either. He’s not mastered that cast member chipperness.

He looks like…well…like a bus driver from Dayton or Binghamton, a bit hunched over and a bit gray, with a cough that sounds like only portions of his lungs remain in tact. As we leave I thank him warmly (Hoping, in the best Disney spirit, to make up for the food court incident).  Donald sort of grunts “yea, sure” at me, with what I perceive is a bit of sarcasm. It was borderline, the sarcasm. But he was definitely not displaying the spirit I imagine the employee manual demands. I thank him again even more warmly.

In this one the smarmy waiter is standing outside our car-table at the elaborate drive-in theme restaurant impressing my kids and annoying us with his invasiveness and wit.  Then he drops ice cream in my daughter’s lap trying to be cute and loses his cool and breaks the spell. I tip him well.

I collect these reminders of the real world. I annoy my family by pointing them out — a lonely scrap of trash along the well-groomed Disney highway, the cast member with bad breath, the Dalmatian hat left on the bench and the soggy french fries.

This is us back at our room. Here’s  my daughter playing for a long time with a handful of stones from the motel parking lot. And my son clicks off the Disney Channel, grabs his small, soft football, and begins his commentary about the game he’s about to win, then dives time and again onto the bed.

And here I am in the corner smiling at them, wearing big, round black ears and carefully reading every single page of the newspaper.