Dateline: Orlando Part II

A note to the patrons of Disneyworld: I don’t care how young you are or how thin you are or if your body is hot and cut and smells good. It doesn’t matter if you have a $200 haircut and are dressed head to toe in designer clothes and have the latest, coolest tat on your arm. I don’t care how useful they are. If you wear a fanny pack, you will look like a douche bag.

All the employees of Disney—excuse me, cast members—wear nametags that also include their city and state of origin. Our lunchtime waiter at the home cookin’ buffet was from China. It didn’t give the province or region. It just said, “China.” Close enough. He was middle aged and I was wondering what the arc of this guy’s story was. He came from China and is now delivering food to overfed Americans.

I was watching him from across the restaurant while I was musing about all this stuff. He had just bussed a table and was walking towards the kitchen with a tray full of dirty dishes. He stopped right before the kitchen, looked down, saw a balled-up napkin on the floor, flipped it up in the air with his toe, snatched it with his right hand and returned his hand to the tray without upsetting the dishes! For real! It happened so fast that nobody saw him do it! It was a Zen moment that passed by unnoticed in the chaos that was swirling around him. Then my imagination really started racing. I thought he might be an ex-member of the Peking Acrobats or that he was a ninja crime fighting master and this was merely an alias. Now, THAT was some Disney magic!