January 7: Terribly Attractive Visions, Disney Past Life, Beer and Schnitzel

Back to the saga of Arthur Dent.  Arthur is still lying in front of the bulldozer, arguing with Mr. Prosser, the man in charge of demolishing Arthur's house . . .

Mr. Prosser said, "You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time you know."

"Appropriate time?" hooted Arthur.  "Appropriate time?  The first I knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday.  I asked him if he'd come to clean the windows and he said no he'd come to demolish the house.  He didn't tell me straight away of course.  Oh no.  First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me a fiver.  Then he told me."

"But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."

"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon.  You hand't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you?  I mean like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display . . ."

"On display?  I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did.  It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'" 

A cloud passed overhead.  It cast a shadow over Arthur Dent as he lay propped up on his elbow in the cold mud.  It cast a shadow over Arthur Dent's house.  Mr. Prosser frowned at it.

"It's not as if it's a particularly nice house," he said.

"I'm sorry, but I happen to like it."

"You'll like the bypass."

"Oh, shut up," said Arthur Dent.  "Shut up and go away, and take your bloody bypass with you.  You haven't got a leg to stand on and you know it."

Mr. Prosser's mouth opened and closed a couple times while his mind was for a moment filled with inexplicable but terribly attractive visions of Arthur Dent's house being consumed with fire and Arthur himself running screaming from the blazing ruin with at least three hefty spears protruding from his back.  Mr. Prosser was bothered with visions like these and they made him feel very nervous.  He stuttered for a moment and then pulled himself together.

Mr. Prosser, who is distantly descended from Genghis Khan, although he doesn't know it, is bothered by visions of spears and fire and destruction.  Perhaps deep ancestral memories imprinted in the cells of his brain.  A fragment of a past life soul pushing its way to the surface of his mind.  Evidence of some latent psychopathic tendency.

If I were to choose a person whom I was in a past life, I would have a few candidates.  Charles Dickens--I've always felt a particular kinship to him and his manic writing life.  Flannery O'Connor--minus the whole dying of lupus thing.  Robert Frost--although I would never be able to raise chickens (nasty birds).  For the last several days, however, I'm thinking that perhaps I have a little Walt Disney in me.  Not the parts where he was terrified of communists and provided names to HUAC in the 1950s.  No, I'm talking about the guy who came up with the idea for a cartoon of an unassuming little mouse and built a whole universe based on that notion.

And here I sit in a place that started with that little, black-and-white fella.  It is 61 degrees outside my door at the moment, and I just received an e-mail from my kids' school district that classes have been cancelled for today because of a winter storm and hazardous driving conditions.  That actually made me laugh out loud.  If I were home at the moment, I'd be cursing and staring out the window, watching snowplows blow by.  Instead, after I'm done with this post, I'll be putting on a pair of shorts and getting ready to head out to an amusement park (EPCOT, I think, today).

We spent yesterday at Hollywood Studios.  I went on some thrill rides--the Tower of Terror and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster.  We also tried our hands at Toy Story Midway Mania.  Then, it was a boat ride over to EPCOT to have a late lunch at the Biergarten in Germany.  It was the wurst (sorry, I couldn't resist).  The food was amazing, and there was a band for entertainment--tuba, accordion, drums.  My wife and I polkaed, which we haven't done in years.  I blame the stein of grapefruit beer that I'd just consumed with my schnitzel. 

In the evening, my kids and wife went swimming while I helped my sister do some laundry.  Yes, even at the most magical place on Earth, you have to do housework.  Tee shirts smell like sweat.  Underwear and socks pile up.  It was two or three hours of Disney time that I'll never get back, although I did walk down to the bar to have a Guava-rita with my sister and best friend.  We sat and talked and watched the fireworks go off over the lake.  It was still kind of magical.

Yes, I think I may have been Walt in a former life.  Or maybe I'm still feeling the effects of the Guava-rita.  It was quite strong.

Saint Marty is ready to make some more dreams come true today, as long as they don't cost too much.