MDC vs. DBAG

This is the way my vacation ended
This is the way my vacation ended
This is the way my vacation ended
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Or not a whimper, actually, but a shriek and a dead bird.

Let me back up and qualify. My vacation at Disney World did not involve a dead bird. In fact, our very last morning at the parks included a baby duck sighting. It followed its mother around Adventureland while guests (yours truly included) whipped out their cameras to take pictures, since it was a baby duck at the Disney World and therefore cuter than baby ducks elsewhere. It's a strange phenomenon I will call Magical Duckling Cuteness (MDC). MDC worked on me as I ate my final Dole Whip with my friends, Nevi and Melneth. It wiped away the horror at having witnessed the mangy-looking Country Bears sing incomprehensible songs (a mistake on our last day, but alas, we'd missed it during our first Magic Kingdom day, and it was on the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World Touring Plan). MDC was the proverbial cherry on the ooey-gooey, so-sweet-you-could-almost-puke-and-be-happy-doing it sundae that is is a trip to the World. MDC was an excellent way to end the World portion of a trip. I highly recommend it. Should you be planning a trip to the World--or anywhere, really--you might want to consider finding a duck egg and incubator and then time the hatching just right so you can experience MDC too. It is that spectacular.

But I do not consider any vacation truly ended until I'm home in my apartment. I stretch out the warm fuzzies of a vacation to last me through goodbyes and security at the airport, during the flight, and during the drive back to my abode*. It helps sustain me despite the cries of anguish at having to return to work.

So: My vacations do not end until I'm home again. And really, I also employ my silly-puttyish vacation-extending skills to say that if I was off work that day, it's still vacation until I wake up the next morning. Thus, I was still awash in Disney-joy and MDC, if bittersweet Disney-joy and MDC, as I lugged my suitcase and backpack to my second-level walk-up. I shuffled things around until I could fit my key in the lock, opened the door, and spied a dark shape on the entryway beside my bike.

Huh, thought I, Didn't I leave things more cleaned up than that? I like coming home to a clean apartment... I turned on the light to see the carcass of a dead bird, its wings splayed out and its legs raised in the air. I shrieked, made incoherent noises, and my brain kept babbling "That's not magical! That's not magical!"

Nor were the droppings in my laundry room magical. The bird carcass, in its pre-carcass state, must have come in through my laundry vent and relieved its bowels all over my laundry room before fluttering about and deciding that my bike would provide it final comfort as it expired. I suppose it might have mistaken the handlebars, or perhaps the pedals, as wings.

So that was the end of my vacation. Dead Bird in Apartment Grossness (DBAG) terminated it prematurely, robbing me of those final hours when I might have dreamed of smiling characters and Cast Members and a final trip on the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster.

Oh well. I still have the memories. And the photos. And my Pirate and Princess mouse ears. As vacations go, it was pretty sweet.



*Unless it was a bad vacation involving illness or theft or emergency surgery or crashes on deserted islands with mysterious shadow-beasts or other unpleasant things. But hurrah! such was not the case.