I was half-way through the first day of training when I was handed the twenty-five page script to memorize for the next day. That was enough for me. As soon as my shift ended, I asked to be transferred somewhere else. I was on summer vacation and had no intention of learning a goofy shtick for $6.50 an hour. I would also be incapable of maintaining the Disney image in front of a heckler showing off for his girlfriend. Besides that, for most of the rides at Disneyland, you have to wear hats.

I don’t wear hats.

The Adventureland supervisor who had the power to reassign cast members gave me what he considered the worst job of all. Retail. I would be around the corner in Frontierland selling postcards, stuffed animals, and those Davy Crocket guns.

With no other choice, I traded in my khaki pants, shirt, and safari hat for a plain white button-down shirt, a Dicky Bow, no hat, and an obscene pair of tight brown dress pants handed to me by a suggestively grinning young man who seemingly took great pleasure in picking out my costume.

I should point out that the male employees of Disneyland tend to fall into two distinct categories. Either you’re a lederhosen wearing ride operator tucking people into their seats on the Peter Pan ride or you’re a guy’s guy planning on chatting up the sexy skirt-wearing ladies who navigate the Story Book canal boats.

Ah, the Fantasyland babes.

The women in Frontierland, on the other hand, wear their skirts down to the ground and have loose, decidedly non-formfitting, blouses. My tight tight tight pants hardly helped me fit in. I spent my entire first day selling Mickey Mouse plush while leaning up against the counter in case any stray breeze stumbled by.

After my shift ended, I walked across the park with Amy, an attractive young woman who demurely suggested for the sake of my children that I should try to get my pants in the next size up. She later told me that she could tell how much change I had in my pocket. I never worked with her again, and actually, never worked with anyone who wasn’t over fifty or under one-fifty.

I was miserable and hardly enjoying the companionship of my co-workers. My boss was arrogant, power hungry, and dating another employee who made Kathy Bates look like Cathy Ireland. Then there was Dan. The Avalon Man. He’d lived on Catalina Island his whole life and was a lot of fun until his fiancée dumped him which put him into a near suicidal funk for the rest of the summer.

I once had a cook at the employee cafeteria underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean give me the eye. At least, I think she was; either that or her lazy eye was acting up. She did always give me extra gravy on my mashed potatoes.

My prospects were dim as I neared the end of my tenure. A couple of weeks before I left, Amy stopped to say goodbye. She told me to call her when I got back to school and then noted that I’d taken her advice about my pants.

How could I resist that?