Calling on Courtney

It was a bad day overall for my family and I. Three rides had shut down while we were on them and Spiderman (one of my personal favorites) was shut down all day. Nevertheless, we all shrugged it off and moved on with our lives. 

While walking through Superhero Land, or whatever they call it there, I see Captain America standing on the side of the street taking pictures with people. Now, I will be honest with you guys, usually I hate taking photos with guys in costumes at theme parks because they are usually ugly, gay, or anti-social and weird. Therefore, I never get any joy from walking up to them and taking a picture because without the suit they are nothing. Just a boy. 

This time was different though. This time I walked passed Captain America expecting a fake muscle suit with a wimpy guy underneath. But, I had to double-take because what I saw was not what I expected. He was muscular. Like actually muscular, not fat. And he had a gleaming smile from cheek to cheek with a deep voice that sounded a bit like warm honey sliding down your throat. 

Naturally, I ran in line to get a picture and turned into 13-year-old me, who decided that she would plan the wedding here and now. 

After waiting in line for about 10 minutes a lady came up to us and said, "Okay, that was the last person, Captain America will be out at 7:30 for more pictures." I looked at her and back to Captain America and then back to her. This was not happening. The one time I find an actual real look-alike to Chris Evans, and then this lady thinks she has the right to cut me off. This could be the only time I get to ever get a picture with this exact Captain America. I mean he was looking at me with eyes that said, "C'mon, take a picture with me." 

So naturally, in my head, I ran past her, with open arms to the Captain, where he would catch me and dip me so that people around us "Ooo-ed and aah-ed" at the sight. But with everything that happened that day, I chickened and felt weak at the knees. All I said to her was "why?" She looked at me with a glare that said "who is this strange child who asks me why?" And turned to me and said "He'll be back at 7:30" with a voice that sounded like nails scratching on a chalkboard. 

That's when one tear drop began to form in my eye and fell to the ground. It was the icing on the cake and I felt stupid for crying a bit, but it had to happen. He was gone and I will never find that perfect Chris Evans look-alike again.

Well, little is an understatement because it is probably up there on my worst pet peeves of the century.

I have an annual pass for Universal and I absolutely love it. With an annual pass, I basically do whatever I want. It's like VIP for a party, except way cooler because you know, it's a theme park and you aren't having to watch drunk dudes whip. 

However, with all the cool superhuman power this annual pass brings me, there is one fatal flaw. There is one "bete noire" to my existence on this earth. And this is the stupid thumbprint lockers. Now, one might think, why Courtney is this so annoying to you? And that is a very good question because from the concept, many would think, "wow this is awesome because now they don't have to have a key for the lockers." The unfortunate truth is that the locker system at Universal is severely flawed when you add in the people who completely lose all brain cells while trying to rent one out. 

For example, one woman and her husband were going to ride Rip Ride Rocket together, but have to put all stuff in a locker according to new rulings from Universal. I, trying to get in and out of the sweaty huddle of people, got behind them to rent out a locker for my family and I (They always send me in because I seem to know how to maneuver all the stupidity floating around me and do it as quickly as possible). The lady and her husband were speaking Spanish and seemed to be highly confused at this mysterious technology before them. Two buttons were all they had to push, and then pick a finger to put on the scanner. However, the lady seemed to forget how to read and started trying to open every single locker in the section. I tried to help, seeing as though this was cutting into my ride time, but the lady couldn't understand me. I ended up grabbing her finger putting it onto the scanner and pointing to her locker. 

Not only that, but later on the same day, I was standing trying to rent a locker for Hulk while two girls were waiting to get their stuff out of a locker. They seemed to think it was a completely brilliant idea to stand in front of the entire locker station with a line of people behind them while they inspected every single item that they pulled out of their locker. It was like they had never seen the stuff that was coming out of it before. They seemed to move in slow motion. Pulling one item out at a time, looking at it intently as though it was going to run away if they didn't stare it down hard enough. I tapped my foot impatiently until I just ended up pushing through them to the scanner. They looked at me like I had just shot the president and stood there for at least 30 seconds staring me down like two beady-eyed hawks. 

I know what you are thinking right now, and it's probably something like this, "Wow, Universal needs to teach people some locker etiquette, right now." And believe me, that is what I was thinking, but no. They offer no informational video on locker etiquette or any nice rules of the locker stations. Nada. Zilch. None. And one would think they would since the locker stations need step-by-step Lego instructions because again, people seem to lose every ounce of education they had while standing in front of them.