Which is more surreal: Searching the Walt Disney World resort at 2 a.m. for an emergency room or asking Magic Kingdom security to assemble a search party for your wife and daughter? The next time I take a family vacation, I'm going to option the television rights as the "Bonner Family Surreality Vacation Show."
I was offered a speaking engagement at an explosives engineer and blaster's conference at one of the Walt Disney World resort hotels. I invited my wife, five-year-old son and nine-month-old daughter to join me. After a late-night flight to Orlando, we were in bed at 12:30 a.m. dreaming of an exciting day in the Magic Kingdom.
At 1:30 a.m., my son was screaming loud enough to wake the 999 ghosts in the Haunted Mansion. After 15 minutes of inconsolable hysterics, he finally told us that the airplane had burst his ears. The front desk said they could send a doctor to my hotel room at considerable expense — like second-mortgage expense. So I asked where the nearest hospital was located. She mumbled some directions and said, "Have a magical day."
Somehow the odds of having a magical day seemed small considering my son needed an emergency room at 2 a.m.!
So much for those directions. After 15 minutes of aimless wandering, my son had stopped crying and was excited about seeing Walt Disney World at 2 a.m.! A policeman working a wreck gave me better directions, and we were able to find the Celebration Health hospital.
The emergency room had a beautiful portrait of Jesus hanging above the nurse's station. My son played in the children's waiting room for two hours. He then slept on adjoining chairs for the next three hours. He woke up around 8 a.m., told me that his ears were no longer hurting and that he wanted to go home (Lufkin, not the hotel).
Now I was the hysterical one. I wanted to tell those nurses where they could go "celebrate," but I could not muster the courage with Jesus looking on. So I refused treatment for my son, and we were back at the hotel by 9 a.m.
Three hours later, we were singing "A Pirate's Life for Me" while on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. We were having a "magical" day.
The meeting itself was a blast — pun intended. My talk went well but only after I made another late-night trip. This time it was to Best Buy to purchase a new Windows operating system. Sometime during the trip, my laptop computer's operating system decided to go and "corrupt" itself. Of course. I had a backup copy of my Powerpoint presentation on CD; however, it somehow got erased. Less than 12 hours before my talk was scheduled, I had no talk to present. I was able to restore my system, and all's well that ends well.
It was then time for one final night at the Magic Kingdom. The park is amazing at night, especially when the fireworks detonate over Cinderella's Castle. Thousands, possibly even millions, line up along Main Street to view the fireworks. As my family jockeyed for position among the hordes of people, my son and I became separated from my wife and daughter. No problem as I thought we were supposed to meet by the bus stop if that happened. As usual, yours truly was wrong!
After the fireworks had ended at 9 p.m., my son and I ran to the bus stop, but my wife and daughter were not there. We waited as two more of our resort's buses filled. Still, no wife and daughter. At this point, I assumed that they had already gone back to the hotel. Bad assumption!
We hopped on a bus and were back at our hotel by 10 p.m. Imagine our shock and frustration to find that the rest of our family was not in the hotel room.
I started flagging down all the resort buses from the Magic Kingdom. After this proved unsuccessful, my son started crying, "I think my mom and sister are dead." That wasn't helping the situation.
At 11 p.m., I called the Magic Kingdom security from the hotel room and gave them the description of my red-headed wife and her green stroller. They were just about to make an announcement on the public address system at the park when the door to our hotel opened. And the two "lost" Bonners strolled into the room.
The conversation afterwards is censored. Evidently, we were supposed to meet at the park's exit and not at the bus stop. We probably walked within five feet of them.
Even with these late-night escapades, the trip was validated when my son said, "I don't want to go home. I want to stay at Disney World."
I cannot imagine how great the Magic Kingdom must be to a five-year-old. Disney World can turn even the most cynical and sarcastic adult like myself into a kid again. It truly is a place where dreams can and do come true.
