I love Disney World—honestly though, who doesn’t? But while it may be the happiest place on Earth, it’s not all magic and rainbows. The following is an excerpt from my essay entitled “Waiting in Line at Disney World: A Grieving Process.” The second half of the essay will be published next Tuesday.

Denial.

There’s no way that estimated wait time is right, right? 90 minutes? The line doesn’t even extend all the way back to the ride entrance, and I’m pretty sure that guy in the red tank top at the back of the line just took, like, two whole steps forward, which clearly means the line is moving.

Also I’m pretty sure that estimated wait time is always an overestimation that the park puts in place to scare people into not getting in line, thereby making the lines shorter and the estimated wait time a total lie.

I see the games you’re playing, Walter Disney, and nothing’s going to stop me from going down that hill, getting drenched and making a ridiculous pose for the picture so my family can think I’m funny. Ninety minutes, huh? We’ll see about that.

Anger.

Ninety minutes. NINETY MINUTES. It’s already been, like, 40 minutes, and I know my family is not almost halfway through the line; you wanna know how I know that? We just passed a sign that said the estimated wait time from this spot is 60 minutes.

Now, I haven’t taken a math class since high school, but I do believe that when you add the amount of time my family has been in line with the estimated time we’ll continue to be in line before boarding the ride, you get a total wait time of about 100 minutes. And you know what else? ONE HUNDRED IS MORE THAN 90.

Man, these people passing us in the Fastpass line just think they’re soooooooooooooo much better than us peasants in the regular line. Just because we don’t have Fastpasses for this ride at this moment doesn’t make us any worse than them—believe me, if Walter would allow my family to get a Fastpass for every ride, we would have them.

Yeah, I know I just used the Fastpass line an hour ago on Space Mountain, and yeah, I know I openly gloated to everyone waiting in the regular line, and yeah, I know the people in line probably weren’t happy when I asked them if they knew what year it was, but these people passing us now … These people are different. They suck and I hate them. I hope they don’t even get splashed with one drop of water when they go down that stupid hill. I hope when they get off the ride they check their phone and they don’t have any notifications. I hope … hey, the line’s moving.

Jackson Bayer is a senior creative writing major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or at jcbayer@eiu.edu.