Here's my gift to the pronatalists, feel free to use for your PR purposes. To all you on-the-fence or procrastinating couples, you better hop to it and make those babies! Or one day you too could end up like this miserable childless couple, forced to go to Disney World in the summer heat and ride a boat through the dark looking at 1960s-era animatronics, with nary a glimmer of joy or magic on your faces, while everyone else on the boat is full of glee. 😘 You don't want to end up like me, do you??

Okay, here's my serious review of Magic Kingdom after going for the first time since I was 10:

It is INCREDIBLE the level of human-psychology engineering they have put into this place, to be able to push people just up to the limits of what they can tolerate without losing their shit entirely, while also sucking every dollar out of them, right to the perfect level of sunk-cost rationalizing so you force yourself to have fun bc it cost so much. A true miracle of capitalistic efficiency in keeping people moving and dollars flowing, while not flipping out. It is ultra precision engineered to just perfectly toe the line between being maddeningly INSANE and good old American there's-a-sucker-born-every-minute wholesome Borscht-belt level razzle dazzle.

The bathrooms don't have mirrors!! The stalls have no flat surfaces where you could put a phone or drink down that you then forget and have to return for. They make sure you're in and out in two seconds.

The lines are all perfectly crafted to hide from you just how truly long they are, with snaking turns that tantalize you into thinking you're almost there, then crush your hopes but not entirely, then give you something to look at or hit you with a fan blast right when you're about to pass out from heat stroke.

The $8 bottles of water that you will buy a dozen of throughout your day just to not die are perfectly located whenever you need one, and the temperature of the water coming out of the drinking fountains that you might use to refill those bottles rather than buying a new one is just disgustingly warm enough to motivate you to not care that you’re spending $100 just on water, bc that's how badly you need a cold drink.

You will plot most of your moves based on how you can get anything cold on, in, or around you, so you'll buy the $14 overly-sweet ice cream cone, but if you can't swallow it whole within 80 seconds, it will melt all over your hand.

The old crappy rides all rely on putting you in the dark most of the ride, which is disorienting enough to make you think it's fun or thrilling, and thankful for the dark because at least it's a respite from the skin melting heat you'll be returning to shortly.

The adults are all riding off the nostalgia of their own conditioning as children into thinking a park with the worst rides and lines is the best, and passing it along to their own kids, and if anyone is wavering in their faith, there is a chirpy park employee to remind them they're in the most magical place on earth, and shame them into not properly enjoying it with the right attitude. They won't break character.

The fact that inevitably half of the best rides that you actually wanted to go on are shut down for repairs won't even bother you because the whole experience is such an exhausting ordeal that you will be thankful it's one less 90-minute line to stand in. And instead you'll just think I guess I'll go on Space Mountain next time, bc now you’ve been infected with the Disney virus and are actually thinking about a next time.

And it all just ends up feeling like something everyone should have to go through, at least once. What else really binds as Americans anymore, you know?

Also, I did really like the Tron ride, that one was quite terrifying and cool. Gave me the good almost-cardiac-event survivor endorphins.