Specious Reasoning: Life is Good

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Leadership 5 – 22 January 2012, 2:30 p.m.

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“Bring me your most expensive fez!” exclaimed Edmund Callipeaux.

He and I were walking through the Home Depot in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, and Edmund was telling me about his recent trip to Florida, and to Disney World, with his wife, Le Tigre.

“We were in a shop in the country of Morocco at that lake in EPCOT they call, The World Showcase. What a great place! We had so much fun!” Edmund continued to explain as we walked through the store and toward the lumber area.

“Have you ever been down there, L5?” asked Edmund.

“No. I’ve never had the pleasure,” I replied.

“Oh, it’s a great place. (Completely insane and over the top, mind you) but incredible all the same!” Edmund launched into the full description of EPCOT Center, MGM Studios, and the Magic Kingdom near Orlando, Florida and how he and Le Tigre had visited them often over the years because one of their good friends, Johnny Raptor lived in Orlando and worked for Disney through the mid- to late-1990s and early Ought’s of this Century.

“We’d go into the parks while Johnny Raptor was busy at work, and then he’d meet up with us later in the evening for dinner. They have all this fun stuff: roller coasters, boat rides, shows, fireworks, parades, fun for the whole family - - something for everyone (I’d say).

“There’s like 4 theme parks and they are all connected by bus or Monorail or boat. It’s crazy. So you check into your hotel and forget about the rest. It’s all covered. First we’d take the bus, or Motor Coach (as they call it) from our hotel to the Magic Kingdom, hang around there for a while and go on a bunch rides, like The Pirates of the Caribbean and It’s a Small World, as well as The Jungle Cruise and Peter Pan. Then we’d catch a boat across a lagoon and to Disney’s Polynesian Hotel, where we would enjoy a Zombie at the Tiki bar. After that we hopped on the Monorail and rode it over to EPCOT and toured around the lake that’s lined with these crazy recreations of countries from around the world. You can walk from Morocco to Italy to Great Britain within minutes! They have restaurants and shops in each country and it’s really fun to explore all the spots!” He spoke as we walked past the hardware isles that were stacked high with power tools and cluttered with signage advertising a variety of in-store sales.

Edmund continued to describe EPCOT Center: “We alternated as we walked from one country to the next as to who would be the President, Prime Minister, King, Queen, Dictator, or whomever. So from Mexico to Norway to China, one of us was calling the shots and the other person had to do their bidding. Eventually, Le Tigre knighted me as King of All Lands. And there was nothing I could do…. We were in England at the time, and she was the acting Queen, so I had to obey the command of her highness. So I basically had my run of the place! It was great fun!”

Stopping next to a bin filled with tape measures that were discounted to $9.99, he said, “You know, L5, it’s surprising…. It’s surprising because I always thought that by the time I reached the age of 42 that I’d be more cynical and jaded toward stuff like Disney World (and life in general). I guess that sometimes things don’t always turn out like you had hoped?”

Tossing a tape measure back into the bin, I said, “Maybe that’s true, Edmund. It is a somewhat surprising to hear the excitement in your voice as you describe your time in Mickey Mouse Land. By the way, what was the most expensive fez they had?”

“Oh, that was a bit of a disappointment. They only had one standard type of fez, and it wasn’t that expensive, and none of them fit my head. I think that they were made for little kids,” replied Edmund as we began to walk through the store once again.

“So I left Disney World fezless….”

Just then, we arrived at our destination in Home Depot. “Ah, here we are,” Edmund looked up at a rack of long boards called Brick Molding. Brick molding is a type of wooden construction material used to make doorjambs and window edging on houses. We were at Home Depot to purchase over a hundred feet of brick molding that will be used to build frames for Edmund to stretch canvas around and make paintings in his art studio in preparation for his upcoming exhibition in March.

“Hmm…. I don’t know about this. These look pretty warped,” Edmund said as he eyed the length of a 17-foot-long board.

Bad brick molding!

“Let me take a look at some of these,” Edmund began to shift the boards around and he pulled a few out from the stack for further inspection. As he did this, he continued to describe his and Le Tigre’s trip to Disney World.

“The thing that we discovered going to the parks is that you have to have a plan. Or rather, I should say, there are rules you need to follow if you want to survive past noon,” Edmund said as he continued to inspect the lengths of brick molding.

“Man, these boards are really warped. I don’t see any that are worth buying,” Edmund said as he stepped back from the pile.

“Write this down, L5. Here’s a pen…. You ready?” Edmund said this as I took the pen from his hand and readied my notepad.

“The Rules for Surviving Theme Parks:

1. Sometimes you need to walk single file.

2. Sometimes you need to change your plans.

3. Always plan for lunch.

4. There will be strollers and rude people (see Rule #2).

“If you follow those 4 simple rules, you’ll do fine at Disney World, I guarantee it!” Edmund said as he tapped on my pad of paper with his finger. “Those are the rules for theme parks and I’m considering adopting them as my basic rules for life in general,” Edmund said.

He continued to say, “Luckily for us, Disney World wasn’t too terribly busy while we were there. The kids had just gone back to school from winter break and the weather was kind of cool, so a lot of the local Floridians were holed up in their homes trying to endure the 50 - 60° temperatures rather than flooding Disney World with the usual throng."

The current outdoor Minnesota temperature just then was about 25° and the forecast was for drizzling rain. This rain will turn to freezing rain later in the day, causing glare ice on the roads. And if we stay this unlucky, we might also have bit of snow on top of the ice as we go into the night. Going from an environment like this, or what Le Tigre often refers to as, “living on the surface of the moon”, to the Florida sunshine makes 50° feel like shorts-weather.

“It looks like the Sunday Home Depot crowd is starting to fill this place up. It can get kind-a busy in here on the weekends,” Edmund said as a guy holding a box of nails bumped into him, and then walked away without acknowledging the incident.

“It’s okay,” said Edmund, “To many people I am merely a gray shape that they only perceive out of the corner of their eye. It’s as if I have Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak on when I am out in public. And so it can be rather surprising to people when they bump into me.

“One of the big surprises for Le Tigre and myself, while we were on our vacation to Walt Disney World, was the park they call, The Animal Kingdom. This place was amazing! Considering all the years that we had gone down there, we had never toured through this park before! We had always heard that there wasn’t much to do besides look at animals. Which I guess is cool, but we’re not big Zoo People.

“Heck, I can’t even remember the last time I went to the New Zoo in Minnesota, and that’s just across town. Why would we travel to the other side of the country to go to a zoo then? At any rate, that’s what I always thought about the Animal Kingdom at Disney.

“But boy, were we wrong! The Animal Kingdom was awesome…a highlight of the vacation!” Edmund said this as we began to walk through the store once again.

“Can I interject here, Edmund?” I asked, “The New Zoo has been around since 1983 and I do believe that it’s actually called, The Minnesota Zoo. The “New Zoo” was an advertizing slogan they used when the zoo first opened its doors to the public to distinguish themselves from the older zoo at Como Park, in St. Paul.”

“Old Zoo doesn’t have quite the same ring. Does it? Either does, Minnesota Zoo. They should have stuck with New Zoo. It rhymes and it’s branding, which is storytelling, and a Brand is a promise of the story. The Minnesota Zoo paints me a picture of walleye fish in a tank and promises me that that tank will be indoors and under fluorescent lights during the winter. The New Zoo opens up the door for something unexpected, like Dinosaurs, which is what they have at the Animal Kingdom!

“The Animal Kingdom was a blast. It was so cool. In addition to having this safari ride (which was marvelous - - we saw animals like rhinos and giraffes and elephants), and they have walking tours (which led you through beautiful gardens and jungle-like areas, which was really fun to explore), they also had an entire area devoted solely to Dinosaurs! I think that it was called Dinosaur Land, and they had Dinosaurs everywhere you went! What more could you want from an adventure?

“Dinosaur Land takes the pages of my favorite book, The World of Dinosaurs, and constructs a land that you can walk around in, have lunch in, and there are rides where these dinosaurs chase you around! It’s the best of a hundred million years of technology. Or, as Johnny Raptor wrote to me in a text message, while we were at Dinosaur Land…. ‘Did you say dino RIDE? That’s two goods joining forces for a greater good.’ And I could not agree with him more! It’s the pinnacle of human and monster evolution and adventurism!” Edmund told me about the fun he and Le Tigre had at Dinosaur Land while we continued to walked through the Home Depot store.

“And speaking of adventure, they had a rollercoaster next to Dinosaur Land that ran through a mountain that was built to look like Mt. Everest!

“I kid you not, it was bar none the coolest rollercoaster we have ever been on. Some guy piloting one of the boat-shuttles that we took earlier in the week told us that they spent over 100 million bucks on this Mt. Everest ride. They built the experience around a storyline that places you in Nepal and you’re about to go on a mountain climbing expedition. Only there have been recent sightings of the Yeti, the notorious Big Foot-like monster that attacks explorers and wreaks havoc on the mountainside, and furthermore, this rouge ape-man makes ascending to the peak of Everest nearly impossible!

Fake Mt. Everest as viewed from afar.

“I thought to myself, I’m in good shape. I could probably do Everest if I had to…. I’m fit as a fiddle. I could bench press a T-Rex femur in the morning and do battle with the notorious Yeti in the afternoon! (Yawn.) What else do you have? Look at these guns,” Edmund rolled up one of his sleeves to expose the musculature of his forearm, “You know, they call my house, Cannon Land, after these bad boys.”

Looking good, Edmund!

I ignored that last line as I fielded a request for assistance from one of the employees working the floor at Home Depot.

Edmund continued to say, “The whole rollercoaster was really well done. Incredible, actually. While we were standing in line, there were all these objects on display, documenting and giving evidence of the Yeti as well as all the lost explorers from year’s past. The attention to detail was amazing. They must have a lot of fun designing and building those rides, because the amount of work that went into making this rollercoaster was beyond impressive. It’s hard to not get immersed in the storyline, and caught up in the whole environment!

Proof that the Yeti really exists!

An ominous footprint!

“So when we got into the actual rollercoaster train, we figured that we would see the Yeti at some point and I was pretty freaked out. That’s the thing about rollercoasters and me, I always want to go, but once I’m strapped into the car, I want to run for my life. And this sucker proved to be the most intense rollercoaster I have ever ridden!

“The train began going up the traditional steep incline. Up. Up. Up. You know the story of rollercoasters; and so as we got to the top, I was preparing myself for part 2 of the scenario, which is the bloodcurdling freefall. However, that did not happen! Once we reached the summit of the mountain, the train began to run down a slope as it built up a bit of speed, but we quickly came around a sharp bend, and the tracks before the train ended! It looked as if the Yeti had ripped them right out of the ground and bent them 20 feet into the air as he tied their steel lengths into knots! The train screeched to a halt just before it ran off the cliff!

“And there we sat! Out in the open air, the sun overhead, we had to be hundreds of feet above the park, and the train was stopped. Le Tigre and I were in one of the last cars in the train and we were stopped long enough for people to start looking around, and some looked back, careening their necks to see toward where we sat and the tracks where we had come from, almost as if they thought that maybe the ride was broken. I had the thought myself - - for a moment - - you know how you hear about people getting stuck on Ferris Wheels and stuff like that?”

“Yeah, but you don’t want technical difficulties on something like a rollercoaster,” I said.

“Very true my friend,” replied Edmund, “All I can say is that the adrenalin was really pumping, and then, without warning the car shot backwards in an accelerated freefall into the pitch-black darkness of the interior of the fake Mt. Everest! It was incredible! And it was not one of those herky-jerky, throw you about rollercoasters either. The speed and flow of the train gave us the sensation of flying. Who knows what the g-forces were…it was incredible; fastest speeds I’ve ever experienced on a rollercoaster - - and we were going backwards through the dark and everyone on the train was screaming!

“Then the train stopped abruptly once more, and we were in a big cave. With the lights flashing like a lightening storm, we glimpsed the Yeti running around the cavern and we heard his growls and roars: he didn’t seem too happy to see us, or hear our screams. We were on his stomping-grounds and he did not appreciate us driving a train full of people through his lair.

“But before he could get to us, and maybe tie us up on one of those sticks that’s set across a roaring roasting fire, the train took off again! Only now it was going in the right direction and headfirst out of the Yeti’s abode and down the rest of the mountain! It flew out of the darkness and whipped us around the mountain’s base a half-dozen times and landed us back in the main train station!

“It was exhilarating!” Edmund exclaimed as we reached the far side of the Home Depot store, “A total rush!”

“I wonder what sort of wine pairing the Yeti would have had with his dinner that night if you hadn’t escaped his lair in time?” I asked.

“This particular Yeti didn’t look like he had much of taste for fine wines. He wasn’t one of those sophisticated, snooty Yetis. He seemed pretty belligerent, actually. It’s likely he may not have possessed the patience, or perhaps even the dignity, to wait for my body temperature to reach medium-rare on his fiery spit, let alone take the time to set a table with a robust Cab-Sav or Pinot, before he launched himself into his typical gorging session. I doubt his furry paws could even operate a corkscrew - - especially if you consider how enraged he was that we were on his mountain and invading his happy home.

“Anger like that makes it difficult to stop and enjoy the simple things in life, such as a decent wine, or even having a nice espresso after a really good meal,” Edmund was now looking at some lawn mowers in the garden section of the Home Depot.

“Why the heck are we looking at these lawn mowers? Don’t they know that it’s freezing rain outside? Who’s going to buy these things this time of the year?” Edmund said as he looked over toward me.

“What do you have on your list besides the brick molding, L5?”

I looked down at my pad of paper, and the only thing I had written were Edmund’s list of 4 rules to survive theme parks, “It’s just the theme park list, Edmund. The brick molding was the only thing we needed for work today.”

“How long have we been in here?” Edmund asked.

“Nearly 2 hours,” I said.

“Well, we’ve definitely failed on rule #3: Always plan for lunch. It’s glare ice outside and we’ll be lucky if we make it home in one piece let alone getting a decent lunch. And I’m not going to that Arby’s across the parking lot…. So lunch is a total failure.

“And the brick molding is a bust,” I said, “So we have nothing to work on at the studio.”

“So that leaves us with rule #2: Sometimes you need to change your plans,” Edmund said, “Warped brick molding and icy roads…. I’m going home to take a nap and then maybe watch reruns of Top Chef on TV.”

Looking over Edmund’s shoulder, I saw the increasing number of Home Depot shoppers (some indeed with strollers) off in the distance, and yet they were heading our way! With that, I agreed that we should make our way toward the door. And despite the fact that neither of us had anything in our hands, and no shopping cart in tow, a random guy raced ahead to beat us to the checkout counter we were to walk past on our way toward the exit. I’m not exactly sure what he was purchasing; it was just amazing that even though we weren’t buying anything, someone needed to budge in front of us!

It was rule #4: There will be strollers and rude people (see rule #2). So we turned around and moved to exit the building through its northern, rather than southern set of doors. Only once we got over to the doorway at the north side of the building, the inflow of people was so great that we had to go single file (rule #1) to reach the miserably cold parking lot. Therefore, we proved that Edmund and Le Tigre’s list for surviving theme parks does translate into all other aspects of life:

1. Sometimes you need to walk single file.

2. Sometimes you need to change your plans.

3. Always plan for lunch.

4. There will be strollers and rude people (see Rule #2).