Fisney

"Congratulations, Justin, I'm so and so from the local newspaper. You recently filled out a contest sheet, and your entry was selected. You won a $5oo gift certificate to the Disney store."

He called to tell me the good news. I had visions of stockpiling Christmas and birthday gifts. I planned on selling lots of the good stuff on eBay, because when someone is building you a house, they would rather have cash and not Disney goods. I was even going to let Maddie get a real princess dress up outfit- you know, the one that costs a gabillion dollars.

Then he told me that it had to be used in the rapidly depreciating mall, right around the corner. And this is the last weekend The Disney Store is going to be open. The gift certificate was only available at this one particular store, which I thought was really strange. But, at least we would be able to get even more stuff, due to the store closing sales.

Our weekend is so incredibly busy, the only chance we would have to go spend our $500, was Friday night. We arrived, ready to shop.

"Mommy, where are all of the toys?"

We talked to the manager. Her first words, "So, do you think you'll be able to find $500 worth in here?" Not a good sign.

I asked about going to a different Disney store.

"Well, this is not really a Disney store anymore. We are a wholesale group that sells discontinued items from Disney."

Great. I was expecting something like Macy's and got T.J. Maxx. It was Fisney. Fake Disney.

We started shopping.

"Sure you can have that. It's only $.89, why don't you get a few of them. Maddie, look at this Tink shirt. They don't have your size, but they do have an adult small- do you think you'll still like it when you are 20?"

It was a lot harder to spend the $500 than I thought I would. Pens, coffee cups, stamps, shirts that don't fit yet, and gigantic popcorn tubs- we got 'em.

In fact, if you went to Disney World in '06 and forgot to get a snowglobe, let me know. I'm sure there's one around here somewhere.