Bum-Bum's Birthday

If Sue were to make a Hot List of her own, one of her Hot Pastimes would be Assigning Nicknames. She frequently gives people in the group nicknames, some having a longer shelf life than other. She and Jason had toured with each other for a while before both were on the boat, and she had successfully christened him Lord. She has variously tried to name me Pristine, Sweezer, and Badger.* She has alternatively tried to name Paul Baby Girl, Tender Tinies, and Honey Chile. It should be noted that Sue is not, as one might suspect from such a list, from the South. But the one that has had the longest legs for Paul is Bum-Bum. Sometimes when we are all walking around we refer to ourselves as The Bum-Bum Brigade. There’s even a little song that goes along with it, but that is for another post. In any case, on October 6, Paul, Sue, Beth, our friend Patrick, and I went to Disney World in celebration of Bum-Bum’s Birthday.

Since Beth and I had both been to Disney World earlier in the summer (she with her mother, me with a World Class Magician) we had definite ideas of what we wanted to see. But the day was really for Paul, so we ceded all of our wishes to his own. Luckily, Paul graciously allowed us to select rides that we wanted to go on, so Beth was able to see The Hall of Presidents and I was able to go on the Flight of Peter Pan. Patrick fell asleep during The Hall of Presidents but he can be forgiven since he is Canadian, and the whole thing really didn’t have the same resonance for him.

A lot of special things happened to us at Disney World. For one, we kept on being given a special pass when we stood in line that we had to give to the person at the front of the line so they could figure out how long the wait was. I made a big deal out of this when I got to do it, and I think the Disney Employee appreciated the extra attention. Paul was able to get a Birthday Pin at the Town Hall that forced all employees to say “Happy Birthday” to him and give him a free dessert. A special note: they are surprisingly lax about checking to see if it is your actual birthday. My friend Joey’s sister Abby works at Disney World right now in their Pinnochio Pavillion (I can’t remember the actual name – I think it involves the word “Haus”) and we had made arrangements to have lunch there. Abby and her friend Lauren had taken it upon themselves to write a specialty birthday song when they realized their restaurant didn’t have one. It has a dance as well, and due to its popularity has now been implemented park-wide. We were lucky enough to have a performance by the original creators, and it was terrific. It’s funny and snappy, and if you were priviledged enough to hear it yourselves you’d be humming it for the rest of the day.

After Abby and Lauren got off work, they met up with us and we all rode Space Mountain. They were great guides and filled us in on a lot of inside Disney information, which I won’t repeat here because that’s not really the blog’s purpose and I don’t want anyone to get fired. All I’ll say is Aladdin is a ladies’ man. In all, it was a great way to celebrate Bum-Bum’s birthday and we left the park feeling enlivened and invigorated.

*I made up the Badger one just so I could have three, but the other two are actual nicknames she has tried to give me.

Here are some pictures of Bum-Bum's birthday:

Me with Lauren and Abby, outside of Pinnochio's house


Me completing my duties as line pass monitor



Abby hard at work