Welcome to the Moth podcast. I'm Kate Tellers, your host for this episode. When I was five, my dad, through a local trivia contest, won a trip to Disney World due to his niche knowledge of Pittsburgh architectural facades. As that fact might suggest, we were not a Disney family. We were a listen to records and cut the grass with a pushmower type of family.

So this trip was a complete change of course for us.

True to its promise, as the happiest place on Earth, the highs were so high.

I saw my first live salamander on the side of our condo.

I got bright pink Mickey Mouse ears and

Cinderella waved to me from the parade. I was sad to return to my other reality,

and even sadder to discover that the photo my dad snapped of Cinderella's wave was shot a second

too late and cut the back of her head. But the Disney folks know how to hook you, and this unlocked a many-year obsession with Cinderella.

I actually wore glass slippers to my senior prom.

In honor of summer vacation, this episode were heeding the advice

of innumerable Super Bowl winners and taking a trip to Disney World,

with three stories all about the Magic Kingdom and the complex

emotions that arise when we visit a place of fantasy and forced wonder.

Just a heads up, that this isn't all dull whips and Mickey Mouse ears.

The first two stories deal with some pretty heavy topics.

First up, we've got Sarah Ray Lancaster.

She told this story at a Milwaukee Story Slam, where the theme of the night was happy.

Here's Sarah live at the moth.

My grandpa loved Disney World, which anyone who met him, this would probably take them by surprise,

because he was a very stern, very well-educated, sometimes intimidating World War II vet.

But when he entered that park, he transformed into a little boy. He joked, he laughed, he ate way more ice cream than his cardiologist ever would have allowed.

And we usually took this trip over his birthday, which was even funnier because when you go to Disney World on your birthday, you get a button from the Magic Kingdom Town Hall.

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