In the primordial state, before gelling into the being I am today, I oozed with enthusiasm for amusement parks. Crowds back then didn’t bother me as much because those parks were where rides lived. Even those supposedly scary, yet instead were shlocky, filled me with glee. The so-called houses of horror were always more silly than horrifying. Hindsight suggests I was drawn to them simply because being conveyed alone through the dark in a tiny car was peaceful compared to the rest of the park… where true monsters lurked. 

When raised in a suburb, a place of sinister conformity & faux safety, something that’s blatantly horrific is more upfront. More trustworthy than a sleepy housing tract of boxy 60s Stepford houses under the SeaTac flight path anyway. My neighborhood was menacingly bland. Terrors hidden behind seemingly innocuous facades, as all areas short on tolerance/big on homogeneity are. 

So I was stoked when the fam planned a trip down the coast to visit my 2nd-eldest sister Kathy, now married with kids, & living in Long Beach, California. I was looking forward to seeing her, it had been awhile. Also, we were going to The Magic Kingdom. I was 7 yrs old, at the peak of my amusement park fanaticism, & couldn’t wait for the Disney-themed rides. My favorite turned out to be one decades before a movie was based on it. I would’ve gladly been a stowaway in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride if I could’ve worked out how to ditch my family & live there. I still wonder why some of those rides had no cinematic precedents.

Before we could get to that best ride, Kathy wanted to take her kid sis for a saccharine-laced ride on the Small World. I was not much of a doll child. The only one I liked was GI Joe. The line for this ride was shorter. In my head the word ‘duh’ surfaced, but I’d missed Kathy & jumped at the chance to spend some solo time with her. We got in the queue, sat in the tiny boat, & then slowly glided on the placid waters of sickeningly sweet entertainment.

A visit to Disneyland, or any theme park I’d guess, is an all-day affair. Much of that has to do with peak season crowds, but it’s also a huge park to navigate with a large family. Suffice to say you’re never going to see everything. Discretion is advised. Plot out what you most want to do & tackle it like an agenda. My sister & I were currently on a ride I eagerly would’ve skipped & not felt short-changed. I needed no further confirmation of this.

As our vehicle drifted through a cavernous building filled with internationally-dressed, animatronic dolls singing an insipid repetitive tune, the boat grindingly stuttered & lurched to a halt. During a brief interruption in the song a voice stated “This ride is experiencing technical difficulties. Please remain seated.” Then the music came back on. & on. & on. It was already a short song. & now it was on repeat. The dolls kept moving though we were stationary, mocking us. We were trapped in a cave, the world shrunk down to a robotic earworm nightmare.

Minutes tick by. Too loud in here to converse, but my sister & I try anyway & end up mishearing & shouting. The music & jerky doll movements were crazy-making. 15 mins. 20 mins. 30. 45. For a child, this seemed like it was going to be my life from now on. Hungry & thirsty, surrounded by water, not a drop to drink. I began to suspect I’d never really experienced true boredom before, that this was the real deal made manifest. I wondered what I’d do if I had to relieve myself. Pee off the side of the boat? Small world? It’s a small hell after all.

I’ve since met others who admitted they were stuck in that same ride at totally different times. The Happiest Place On Earth harbors a dark secret: the Small World is a metaphor, just not for all cultures coming together. It’s a symbol of shoddy maintenance. Or an example of the creep factor of dolls. Or proof sonic torture is effective. Whales will back me up on this. Their small world is oceans of crappy noise.

In a small world one could assume the small would be safe. Or at least not subjected to unending torment billed as fun. This was the first ride I went on in Disneyland. It’s a wonder I didn’t demand we boycott the entire place. Apparently children are resilient. Yet I do have some residual, deep-seated aversions. & I’ve learned that ‘happy’ is a relative term.

It’s a huge world actually, no matter the shrinking available space. It’s still large enough to find a quiet, secluded place to escape each other. & now there’s a cyber world that’s gigantic enough to dump all our personal mental garbage & still pretend we’re stable, healthy individuals. Yay us! Humans created a world-within-a-world to distort & fuck up. Perhaps humanity can concentrate its destructive tendencies on that world, & leave the real one alone. Why else create a virtual world if not for the small-minded? 

Several years later & a world away, I was in Europe with sister Du. Trying to make it to a hostel in Verona before it closed up for the night. Our train from Madrid had arrived late, & we still needed to catch a bus to the 14th c. convent that hosted the hostel. It locked its doors at 11pm, & the bus stop schedule said the last bus would be here at 10:30. It was 10:38 now, so we were getting anxious.

There were 3 other people at the bus stop with us; 2 American guys, seemingly a couple, & some shifty-looking Italian man. The sleazy/pickpockety dude approaches me in an aggressive come-ony way, muttering something & attempting to reach inside my jacket. My “Hey– fuck off!” was lost in translation when the American couple stepped in & pushed the rando Italian away. He exited the bus stop, leaving the 4 of us there.

As I was thanking the guys for backing me up, my sister recognized one of them. She’d worked with him at the B&O Espresso back in Seattle. He remembered her even though she’d been living in San Francisco for the last few years. We’d gone halfway round the world & run into people from our own neighborhood.

One guess what Du said to him that gave the hellish melody an encore performance in my head. I wrestled with it again writing this story. If fortune prevails, someday I’ll become too senile to recall that loathsome ditty. Most likely I’ll be trapped in that memory, reliving it ad nauseum. Just kill me now. It’s the only way to be sure.