Vacations are good. Vacations are fun. Taking a vacation is an essential part of a happy, balanced, meaningful, and stress-reduced life.

And this is exactly what I was thinking as we were en route to Disneyland, stuck in a traffic jam.

“I have to go potty RIGHT NOW,” my daughter announced.

“When are we going to be there?” my son asked.

“The sun is in my eyes!”

“I’m thirsty!”

”I’d better check that,” my husband said as his @#&!! pager went off for the seventh time in 5 minutes.
I could just feel the tension flowing out of my body.

But it was well worth it.  For only a few short hours later, we were all standing in line for the “It’s a Small World” ride.

“I have to go potty!” my daughter demanded.

“When are we going to get up to the front?” my son asked.

“I better check that,” my husband said, reaching for his pager.

Vacations provide us with a wonderful opportunity to pause in our lives, and to ask ourselves some of the important, metaphysical, Big Picture questions that daily life seems to shove out of the way.

Why, for instance, do some fully-grown adults feel the need to COMPLETELY deck themselves out in Mickey Mouse attire?  Why, after only a couple of days at the Magic Kingdom, was I, too, starting to eye a couple of Donald Duck hats?  Why did it suddenly seem so important to walk around with a giant beak on my head?

What is Disney’s creepy fascination with Evil?  There I was, sitting with my two little darlings, who for just that one special moment didn’t need to go potty, having a little dinner, watching the new, hyped-to-the-max laser show.  Next thing I know, there’s a BIG, EVIL FACE the approximate size of a 5-story building, being projected in the sky in front of us.

“I want to go home!”

“I don’t like this!”

Gosh, it was so cute.  So heart-warming.  Such a Kodak moment for the the family album—the kids covering their faces and screaming.

What is Disney’s fixation on creating all their female characters with great, big, enormous breasts?  Are you like me?  Are you picturing a bunch of GUYS behind that creative decision?

“You want to be Cinderella when you grow up?  You do, sweetie?  And you want to be really stacked, have giant jumbo breasts?  And have a big, strong prince save you from 5-story high evil faces?”

Have the Disney characters who are wandering around the park, posing for pictures, hugging and kissing our children, been through any sort of personality testing/ screening?  Have they been finger-printed by the state?  Is this normal, do you think, to wear a big mouse costume all day and hug minors?

And finally, my most profound question, why don’t we take more vacation?

Americans have the shortest vacations in the industrialized world.  We’re so busy being busy, so busy working, to make money, to buy more things, that we don’t take enough time off.  We don’t take enough time off to break out of our daily cycles, our regimes, and to have fun and goof around, especially as families.

There’s absolutely nothing better in the world.

And this is exactly what I was thinking right after we’d been strapped into the Matterhorn bobsleds, and were starting to make our way up the steep, dark hill inside the Matterhorn.

“I want to get off!” my son yelled.

“I have to go potty NOW!” said my daughter.