I’m going to Disney World!!!! OK, so that’s a cliché now, but it is no less exciting when you say it. Go on, give it a try. I’ll wait right here for you to finish.

Feel better?

I know I turn into a giddy little kid when I start talking about either my last visit to the World or the upcoming trip. It’s seven months, three weeks and six days until my next visit, by the way. If you give me a minute, I could tell you the hours, minutes and seconds, but I’m sure you are not interested.

Anyway! The whole point to my story is to talk about one of the necessities of every Disney vacation – souvenirs. We all know this can be a pretty big expense if we aren’t careful … or if my DH lets me go shopping by myself. A few of the souvies I have to have from each visit is a new Mickey ears hat, a T-shirt for that year, a pen and one big souvie. This year it was the Samurai Mickey statue. He’s just too cute for words.

However, my DH has his own idea about what constitutes a souvie. Other than his baseball cap, his idea of a souvie is not quite what the rest of us think of. I have to give him credit, though. His costs a lot less than mine. But then, what he keeps as souvies is what the rest of us call trash.

I’m not kidding.

From this past vacation, he brought home several napkins from various places (they have to have the restaurant’s name on them), a soda cup, a French fry container, a Dole Whip cup, a hotdog sleeve, the EMH wrist bands (we have one in every color now) and a popcorn box. Not the plastic souvie container, mind you, the paper box. He has also collected fast passes for each and every ride that offers one.

One of his favorites now is actually meant to be a souvie – the squished pennies. We now have two full penny books and are working on a third. Of course, this means carrying glucose tablet tubes around filled with pennies and quarters. It is quite fun trying to find new ones now, I must admit.

And then there are the “spur of the moment” souvies he finds. For example, the wet paint sign, the magic masking tape and the opening ceremony streamers from the Magic Kingdom. Now, the wet paint sign and the streamers are self explanatory. But you may be asking what the heck is magic masking tape? Well, let me tell you.

Have you noticed that, when the parks are setting up for the parades, they put a line of masking tape down on the ground? Have you also noticed that the thousands and thousands of visitors never cross this tape line? Just a simple line of masking tape on the ground and all these excited and eager people lining up to see the parade simply stay behind it, no questions. Impressive.

Is there any other place in the country where this would happen? I would love to see this tried in some place like New York City or DC or in any of the regular amusement parks across the country. I think in most of these places, they could put up Jersey walls and people would still try to cross it.

Anyway, we now have a piece of this magic masking tape in our latest scrap book … along with the streamers, wet paint sign, fast passes and a few other things such as our room key and tickets. The rest of his “souvies” are in his man cave on his shelves. And, yes, they were washed before we packed them.

What can I say? I have a very strange DH … and wouldn’t have it any other way. After all, he does share my love of all things Disney. He just likes their trash. And that does leave the majority of our souvie money for me. Can’t beat that!

Story and photos by SFC(ret) Jane Usero