Hi! How are you? Hope yer having a magical day!

Hi there, and welcome to Walt Di$ney World. We hope you have a wonderful, magical, time here at Di$ney, and don't forget to come to our fireworks display each night at the Magical Kingdom, where 20 oz bottles of coca-cola are on $ale at 2 for $14 - just for you!

See you at the parks, Mickey is waiting!!!

Friday night... in my Di$ney hotel room that looked suspiciously like a Howard Johnson's hotel room by the way - until the bill was slid under the door on $unday morning, which showed me the difference between Walt's guest housing and the rest of the civilized world...I was getting ready to go to sleep, so it was time to set the alarm.

The first was the clock radio, and the second was to make the wake-up call on the phone. I set the first for 6:45 on the alarm clock, but I didn't check it...I only set it. I did the phone wake up for 6:55.

On Saturday morning at precisely 6:45 the previously unchecked clock alarm went off at a decibel level exceeding a 767 engine in full flight. BEEEEP, BEEPP, BEEEEP, it sounded like a friggin' air raid siren...and of course, I assimilated it right into my dream. I was having my usual kind of dream where the Banana Band was playing "Free Bird" on spatula guitars - the Mango doing a great Ronnie Van Zandt as lead singer - when suddenly the fire alarm went off in the concert hall as the arson - half man and half tuna - ran away to avoid detection.

10 minutes later, the phone rang and I answered it. The Pirates of the Caribbean were singing,

"Oh ho, doh ho...its great to be a pirate"

"GOOD MORNING!!!!!

...came the booming voice of what I could only assume was the First Mate on the Black Pearl.

I jumped out of bed screaming, "Ok..Ok...I'll get up and buy one of you're $35 ham and egg sandwiches if you'll stop scaring me!!"

And off I went to have another magical day in which I lost 13 lbs in sweat from the 99 degree heat with 98% humidity, and 7 lbs in wallet weight loss as well.

Ho, ho, ho. Mickey damn sure was waiting for me.