$6 for a box of popcorn?!

If you can survive the first 10 minutes of a Disney on Ice show, you can do pretty much anything. As an usher, that is. I’ve been working in that capacity at the Target Center arena in downtown Minneapolis for about four years, and those first 10 minutes when Mickey and Minnie skate out and welcome all the wide-eyed tots are pure, honest toil. I mean actually hard work. I’ll give Disney credit - they put on quite a show chock-full of blaring music, bright lights, and ingenious costumes. This past Thursday Mickey and Minnie and friends brought us the story of Finding Nemo. In this particular adaptation, Nemo again leaves his home, embarking on a journey of self-discovery, only to find himself in northern Minnesota in the dead of winter. Confounded by his lack of personal identity, and lethargic from the sub-freezing temperatures, Nemo is soon snagged and pulled through the ice by a grizzled and wily Bainerd fisherman. Disappointed with our little orange protagonist’s diminutive size, he quickly decides to use little Nemo as live bait for muskies. Now that’s Disney on Ice!

Ok, not really.

Anyway, for this particular show time (there are eight of them over four days), the lower level of the Target Center was filled to capacity, mostly with busloads of small children in groups ranging from about a dozen up to about 40. Across the arena I even saw am a group that had to approach 200 kids, identifiable by their matching bright red t-shirts. Seating a large group like that can be challenging, especially when the group leaders decide to shuffle their tickets. Then they hand me a three-quarter inch stack of tickets with a desperate look. Every group I seated that day did this, and after much reflection, I cannot fathom why. The tickets are printed in order, and if they could have somehow managed to hand them to me in that condition, I could have breezed through them and surmised their seating situation in about 6 seconds. Instead, it looked as if a bitter gale blew their tickets from their hands out on First Avenue and they were left scrambling to collect them from the street. I’m left looking down at a disheveled pile of tickets that reads something like this: Row Q, seat 17. Row R, seat 9. Row Q, seat 2. Row R, seat 29. Row P, seat 22. Row P, seat 11. And so on and so on. Meanwhile some dopey parent volunteers have started to seat their antsy kids nowhere near where they belong. Seeing this, I have to resist the intense urge to question these chaperones’ intelligences and wonder aloud why the four-year old at my knees has no problem reading the numbers on the seats, but the fully grown adults look bewildered, as though the arena isles are labeled with hieroglyphics.

This same baffling scenario played out for every group I encountered this day, save one - the Main Street Lodge, which according to their uniform yellow t-shirts, is a Catholic eldercare community. These twelve octogenarians, complete with four chaperones, three walkers, and two wheelchairs, came prepared to see Nemo. They occupied three different rows, but their tickets were separated and in order. Better yet, each wore a nametag clearly displaying his or her section, row, and seat number. Genius. I guess when you’re 85, you finally figure it out.

Adding to this mess of confusion is the fact that so many people find it impossible to make it to the show on time. Now, I realize that 10:30 am is the crack of dawn for some people, but still. Keep in mind you are in almost complete darkness when the house lights go down. Once the performance begins, it is nearly impossible to find your seat without usher assistance, and when I’m trying to seat two different groups of thirty kids whose seats seem to interlock like a jigsaw puzzle, it might take awhile before I finally hump it back up the steps to tend to your tardiness. Again, some parents tire of waiting and take the first available seats they see. And then when I bring the rightful occupants to those seats, I have to politely ask the squatters to show me their tickets so that I can get them to where they belong. Typically they will stare at me for several seconds with quizzical looks, as if I was speaking Swahili or some other foreign tongue. Gradually, they comprehend, but the look in their eyes changes to “Can’t we just stay here? What’s the big deal?” It rarely dawns on them to swivel their thick, mullet-adorned heads around to see that the arena is all but full, and that there are people patiently waiting directly behind me for their rightful seats. Meanwhile in the near complete darkness Mickey and Minnie and Goofy and whoever have entered accompanied by shockingly loud music which has many of the younger kids immediately crying. By now I’m sweating profusely and my “Welcome to the Magic Kingdom” smile has long since evaporated. Like I said, I earn my money those first 10 minutes.

Now, being a new father, I’m obviously witnessing all this unfold through a new lens of perspective. A couple of years ago I may have watched a witless father vainly trying to get his screaming daughter to vacate her seat so that they can shuffle off to where they belong, and I would have thought to myself, thank God I’m not in that situation. Now, when this exact scene played out before my eyes and I waited patiently as this completely ineffectual dad pleaded with his tantrum-throwing tot to move while she clung to her seat, or rather, the seat of the family waiting behind me, I thought two things - 1) I’m a better dad than you and 2) I will now dedicate myself to never getting into this situation. In about two quick years, I’ll be at Disney on Ice with Audrey, and so I spend much of the day watching all the kids and wondering where Audrey will fit in. Maybe she’ll be the one scared by the loud music and pyrotechnics. Or she might me the girl who knows all the characters and yells their name as they glide out onto the ice. Perhaps she’ll be like the little girl in my section who found herself out of her seat and in the isle tirelessly dancing along to every song like Kevin Bacon in Footloose. That would be cool.
Regardless, I resolve to come prepared. So take note all you parents out there. Here’s how to make the most out of your Disney Day --

Number One: Come early. Needs no further explanation, right?

Number Two: Buy snackes ahead of time and smuggle them in. Do you really want to pay $6 for a box of popcorn? How about $8 for a souvenir Nemo Icee? I didn’t think so. But do not put the treats in your purse, for the security guards at the gate will confiscate them and enjoy eating them on their break. I’m not making this up. You will need to put some effort into your smuggling. I’m also contemplating going to Walgreen’s a day prior and buying a toy or two, which wouldn’t even be considered contraband. Then I could take little Audrey to the bathroom, distract her at the drinking fountain, and then convince her that I just paid $24 for her new stuffed Nemo doll. Don’t think for a moment that I wouldn’t be bragging if I could pull that one off. Stay tuned.

Number Three: Explain to your little girl or boy that the music is really loud and that’s just the way Mickey likes it at Disney World or something like that. Let them know about the near absolute darkness also. Also, when the show begins, try to have an excited look on your face, as opposed to the uneasy, oh-my-gosh-why-is-the-music-so-loud-and-it’s-so-dark-in-here look. Kids tend to pick up on those things.

Number Four: Even if you do manage to surreptitiously convey some food into the place, it’s likely, inevitable even, that you will break down and spend some dough. Treat it like Vegas. Have a preset spending limit. If your kid is old enough, share this number with him or her. “Sweetie, if we spend $9 on this plastic piece of crap, and $12 on this lighted plastic piece of crap, that will leave us with only $4 to eat and you’ll be hungry cause Daddy’s getting a hotdog.” Something like that. Make it educational.

Number Five: Speaking of education, that brings me to my final tip for your trip. As long as you are indulging your daughter and bringing her into the heart of the Minnesota’s largest city, take a few minutes to give her a basic geography lesson. That way she won’t end up like “Jill,” one of my former ninth grade students. You see, for the past couple of years we’ve read Finding Laura Buggs in class, a novel centered around several St. Paul Central High school students in 1954. Fun book. Some good Minnesota history. Hitchcock-like suspense mixed in. Check it out. Anyway, on our final test, I included what I thought was a freebie true/false question: “Sandy Meyer (the protagonist) attends a Minneapolis high school." Jill marked “True” and quickly toted her test up to my desk to protest when she got it wrong. She had that look on her face that said, “I can’t figure out why I got this wrong.” She said nothing, but the pointing and her expression told everything. I looked at the test. I looked at her. “Yes, Jill?” She pointed again, unsure of what to say. I let the silence linger for a moment longer and then finally: “Sandy went to St. Paul High Central, Jill.” I noticed what I thought was the slightest glimmer of hope in her eyes. She finally speaks: “But. . . isn’t St. Paul in Minneapolis?”

I’ve spent a lot of time since that moment wondering how any parent could keep their child in the dark for 15 years as what constitutes the Twin Cities. In ten years of teaching, I think that was the stupidest question ever posed to me. Is this anything other than gross parental negligence? I’m getting angry thinking about it again. So, Audrey Grace, when you’re rolling your eyes as your dad drones on in the car about Minneapolis history or St. Paul city planning, you will have Jill partly to thank.

Just know that when the Leisen family trots down to Disney on Ice, we’re showing up early, we’re smuggling in treats and possibly some toys, we’re not going to cry when the lights go down (wishful thinking perhaps), and we’re going to look at a map of the Twin Cities before we leave.

Get ready, Mickey and Minnie. Here comes Audrey Grace.