Terror on the water: stuck in Disney's "It's a Small World"

At the mention of the four simple words that follow, our minds dull with repetition, our jowls sag — weary from constant frowning, our eyes slam shut, our teeth clench, our entire bodies become rigid. Anti-anxiety pills streak past water as a prime lifesaving supplement.

Well, that happens to me, anyway.

The words? "It's a Small World."

I hate those words, and I hate that ride.

I got stuck in the fabled, animated, indoor excursion about 30 years ago on my first trip to Disneyland. It was the first ride I went on that fateful day, talked into it by friends who thought it would be a fun, funny, tacky, childish, whatever, thing to do. "It'll be real Disney, man!"

By stuck, I mean the ride broke down. The little boats that float through cavernous rooms, while billions of little dolls sing "It's a Small World" over and over and over and over and over, broke down.

And we sat there.

Five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Someone assured us from time to time that the ride would start up soon. "Stay in your Small World boats!" a voice said, soothingly — at first.

That soon changed. Whoever it was began screaming that line at us in most un-Disneylike fashion as we started screaming in response, first: "Get us outa here!"; and then, "Turn off the music!"

Of course, every one of our shouts was riddled with expletives which are, for this retelling, purged. We weren't very Disneylike, either, as it turns out.

The music blared on. The little dollies began to look like little Chuckies. We didn't move. We were doomed.

Finally, a large man in the boat behind me stood up, gave voice to nearly the entire string of comedian George Carlin's famous expletives from those days, and stepped out of his boat and into the water.

We gasped. He was going to drown!

No he wasn't. The water was about ankle deep.

In seconds, we were following him out of the building, so many survivors of the Titanic.

"Please return to the ride. Please return to your Small World boats!" Someone actually was encouraging us to return to the torture chamber.

A very little person behind me said to our ride master: "Oh, shut up."

Touché, little one. It's a small world after all!