How to Deal with the Truth

Note: it’s now been years since I worked at WDW, and I know for a fact there have been major changes to many aspects of how an attractions cast member does their job, so any stories I tell should be viewed as ancient history, not a statement of current policy.

When I worked at Walt Disney World, we had things called Magical Moments. They were impromptu favors we could do for guests under the right circumstances. They were a great way to surprise and delight the guests, and they always left the cast members feeling good.

Unfortunately, word had gotten out. Some people knew about “magical moments,” and would demand them. Not ask, mind you, demand. I literally had people walk up to me, interrupt conversations with other guests, and say, “I want a magical moment.”

Doing that was, at the time, a great way to guarantee that you would not get a magical moment. But, telling the guest that it wasn’t possible, or simply pretending that I didn’t know what they were talking about, still left me feeling pretty good.

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How to Tell Someone That They Are Still Wrong

I’m a lifelong Star Trek fan, and I like the J.J. Abrams movies. No, they’re not quite like the original series movies, or the original series. They were never going to be, and they aren’t supposed to be. They’re a different thing.

I went to see the first hobbit movie in the theater, just to see the first few minutes of the second Abrams Star Trek movie, which ran as a promotional teaser. That short clip with a cliffhanger was a more effective inducement to get me to go see Star Trek Into Darkness than the entire movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was to get me to go see The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug.

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How to Sound Really Old

I’d like to see a kid today try to thread an 8mm film projector.

To be fair, I wouldn’t mind to go back in time and see me as a kid try it. My memory is that I screwed it up more than once.

Or even better, I’d like to see a kid today have to deal with a film strip. Explain to them that they turn the knob to advance the frame every time the tape goes “Boop.” I have no doubt they could do it. But when they say “this sucks,” I could yell, “I know, right?!”

Note from Missy: Hey, Cipher in the Snow is on YouTube!  I had no idea it was made by Brigham Young University. Scott and I both watched this in school when we were kids, even though we grew up in vastly different areas, neither of which was particularly Mormon-heavy.

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How to Take Pleasure in the Little Things

I do have a Fisher Space Pen—the Silver bullet model. I don’t anticipate ever needing to write in zero gravity. I keep the pen because I just think it’s one of the most satisfying, aesthetically beautiful objects I’ve ever owned.

I keep it in a 3D-printed sand worm from Dune, which some would argue reduces its aesthetic value.

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How to Discuss Something that Does Not Interest You

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to do a pretty extensive zipline course.

I thought ziplining would give me an exhilarating feeling of freedom, and it did, when I was actually sliding on the zip line. In between my turns on the lines I felt the least free I’d ever felt. I was literally tied to a platform, stranded high above the ground, while wearing a harness that felt like I was being very slowly kicked in the nuts.

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How to Decide If You Should Call in Sick

I’m not proud of the fact that there was a time when I liked getting strep throat. It’s the sweet spot for a minor illness, because it leaves your mind sharp so you can enjoy recreational reading or TV, but it messes with your voice in a manner that is obvious over the phone, and is contagious enough that no employer want you anywhere near the other employees until you are 100% better.

Public service announcement: I got strep at least once a year, and sometimes up to three times a year, for my entire adult life. Then, nearly ten years ago, I had my tonsils out, and I haven’t had strep since. If you still have your tonsils and you get strep often, talk to your doctor. Unless you’re using strep to help you avoid a job you hate. In that case, protect those tonsils at all cost!

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How to Share Your Dreams, or Share Your Dreams

It would be fun to go back in time and tell past Scott that there’s a Star Trek series about an elderly Captain Picard that also features Seven of Nine and brief appearances by Data, just to see the look on past Scott’s face when I tell him that people have complained about “all the cursing.”

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How to Explore Your Cultural Heritage

My first exposure to my German cuisine was a visit to an aunt’s where many of my adult relatives were working together to make sausage. While they fed meat into the hand-cranked grinder and filled the intestine casing, an aunt offered me a treat. I said “please,” and received her famous home-made sauerkraut, which five-year-old me perceived to be a stinking handful of wet cabbage.

The downside was that she did not instill in me a deep love of my heritage. The upside, for her, was that I never asked her for a treat again.

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How to Keep Your Secret Project Secret

This comic marks the moment when my life changed.

When I wrote this particular comic, I lived in an apartment in Florida and had only recently started making enough money from my web comic to be able to scale my day job at Walt Disney World (in a role and location I no longer enjoyed in the slightest) back to part-time. I used my newfound extra time to write my first novel, and this is when I put it out there so people could maybe read it.

Seven years later I live in a house near Phoenix, Arizona (it’s still insanely hot, but I traded humidity for desiccation and gators for scorpions, both upgrades as far as I’m concerned) and I’m a full time novelist with nine books released and three more I’m working on. My life has changed in ways I wouldn’t have believed, and I am tremendously grateful to you, my readers, because you made it all happen.

And in return I’ve written nothing that is in any way funny in this commentary. That’s the thanks you get, I guess.

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How to Get to Know a Place

When Missy and I moved to Florida we committed to making the move, she accepted her new job, we both quit our existing jobs, we arranged to get out of our existing lease, then we flew to Orlando for a few days to scout the area and secure an apartment. After the plane landed we stopped at a mini-mart to buy some caffeine-laden drinks. They had three-inch-thick bullet proof glass in front of the cashier with a tiny little slot for cash, cigarettes, and lottery tickets.

My jetlagged brain started repeating the phrase “We have made a terrible mistake.”

It turns out that was just a picked a really bad mini-mart. Florida was fine, or at least better than I had feared.

I thought of that mini-mart recently. It occurred to me that today that bulletproof glass is probably serving pretty well as a sneeze guard.

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