This past weekend, I was in Los Angeles to celebrate my friend Kevin’s wedding.
Kevin and I were college roommates. We’ve played numerous basketball games together, but he would be disappointed by my effort on Friday.
That’s the day my sister took us to Disneyland.
Kevin wasn’t there, though; he was planning for the wedding. I just wanted to mention him for a basketball connection.
The Disney day went smoothly enough. We started at California Adventure and saw all kinds of fun stuff.
We helped Tom Holland…er, Peter Parker…uh, Spider-Man sling some webs and save the planet from mutant spiders.
Our ride fell up and down a lot while the Guardians of the Galaxy crew got rescued from test tubes or something.
We drove through Radiator Springs while a bunch of the cars from Cars encouraged us to drive faster.
We rode the Incredicoaster, which was a roller coaster I rode 20 years ago. Back then, it was a Mickey Mouse roller coaster that featured a loop where Mickey’s head and ears were.
Today, that roller coaster is the same ride, but there’s also a lot of yelling about trying to find Jack-Jack, who is the baby from The Incredibles franchise.
It makes for an incredibly loud ride, but I guess the Incredibly Loud Coaster doesn’t have the same ring to it.
In any case, things were going swimmingly. Until the very last ride of the day.
A Big Thunder Mountain Disaster
We boarded the train of Big Thunder Mountain, which is a ride I have probably ridden every single time I’ve been to Disney (world or land).
This ride is a fairly tame train “coaster” that goes around some rocks and mountains. The largest drop is maybe 20 feet, so for someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy thrill rides, it’s right up my alley.
As I got seated on the ride, I made a very, VERY stupid decision.
I looked at some of the people around me. They had hats on. The man who had been on the train before me turned his hat backward so he looked extra cool.
I didn’t think I could pull off a backward hat, but I did think, “Hmm, this is risky. Maybe I should take my hat off and hold it or keep it on my knee.”
You know, the way your gut tries to warn you something is a bad idea.
The train started departing the station, and where was my hat?
On my big, stupid head.
By the time we hit the second drop, the wind ripped my hat right off that dumb head of mine. And I yelled in despair as it soared behind me, somewhere into the abyss below.
The man seated behind me was friendly and pointed me to where the lost and found was. He said he’d lost things before, and they would find the hat and mail it to me.
I was excited! I only bought this hat about a month ago. The brim uses recycled cork. That’s a cool feature.
But it’s been three days now. Disney still has not gotten in touch with good news.
My hope fades with each passing day.
Maybe we’ll have a happy conclusion to this story in a future issue. But for now, I beg of you this one thing:
When your gut says something, I want you to listen to it.
If I had listened to mine, I’d still own a hat. And I don’t want you to lose your metaphorical hat, too, whatever it may be.
So trust your gut. It won’t let you down.