Mrs. Shoebox, the little Boxes and I made a trip to the Florida House of Mouse last week. While going through the parks I realized that there are a lot of things at Disney that make for easy object lessons in life. Here are a few of the things that I picked up during our trip.
- Economics: If you’ve got a product that someone really wants, you can name the price. If you have a product that someone really wants and you can restrict their ability to get it elsewhere, you can name a ridiculous price. Ponchos that cost about the same as a large hefty bag…say $.07 each, when sold outside of a “you will get very wet” raft ride, go for $7.50.
- If you have a group of geese, they are a gaggle, cows are a herd, whales are a pod, a group of photographers gathered at the entrance to a park are called a nuisance.
- All a guy needs to know about relationships with females can be summed up by one line from Mary Poppins. When asked to explain a particular commotion, Mary responded with “I never explain anything.” That was the answer Mr. Banks received and it is THE answer as a male, that you should be satisfied with as well.
- A few years back, Disney instituted the Fastpass system. With this system you can go to some of their more popular attractions, insert your entrance ticket and get a pass that will allow you to skip to the head of the line for that particular attraction at a set time. There are a number of rules around how the passes work so that you may be able to get 3 or so on any given day and then stand in the regular queues for the other attractions. Here’s my object lesson: in life you may get the occasional Fastpass. It may come in the form of a scholarship, a particular job promotion, a great spouse or some other plus. Just like at Disney, life’s Fastpass will let you move ahead of your peers for a period of time. However, also like Disney, you won’t get a Fastpass for every obstacle in your life. Fastpasses should be looked at and used as a perk, novelty, gift. Fastpasses are great and should be relished but we’re going to spend most of our lives standing in line with everyone else and that’s what life is mostly about.
- Recession: Yes there are issues in the economy and I do believe that many people’s “wealth” has been taken down a few notches due to lowered housing equity and stock markets. However, as I wandered through the Mouse’s kingdoms last week, you would never know that the word “recession” was contemplated by anyone. The place was packed! I can also tell you that it wasn’t just the “rich.” If you want to see a cross section of America, spend sometime at the home of the Mouse. Rich, poor, young, old, black, white, single, large families…you see it all at the Mouse and amazingly, we all enjoy the same things….maybe for different reasons but we enjoy the same things. Which leads me to:
- Civility: When visiting the Mouse, with rare exception, people are pleasant, helpful, polite and caring. People who have never met and will never meet again will help get a stroller loaded on a bus (I’m not talking about the paid help), return a dropped item, give up a seat on the bus, make way for a small child to get a front row seat for a parade. If we could somehow package the civility that occurs on the Mouse’s turf and spread it everywhere we’d have a much better chance of talking through challenging issues.
