This weekend I bit into a strawberry crepe (which real men are allowed to eat on Mother's Day) and found an inch-long, pointy piece of hard plastic. When a manager walked by, I handed it to her. She asked if I wanted them to make me some new crepes - I said no, just be careful back there.

It got me thinking about what kinds of things you could find in your food, and still want more:

plastic? maybe
tarantula? no
diamonds? yes please

I found a tiny pearl in a bowl of clam chowder at a seafood restaurant when I was ten or so. I still have that laying around somewhere wrapped in a pink post-it note and a rubber band, because somehow those things were handy at the time.

If my trend continues, I eat out at a constant rate, and I live a normal life span, I should find three more items of interest in my food and at least one of them could be valuable. I wonder what it will be. I should eat out more.

Here's some advice if you're planning a trip to Disney World.

Getting There: Don't plan on sleeping on the plane. Any impression you get from talking to co-workers and neighbors that you're the only people in 100 miles going to Disney World is a lie. The whole country is going. Several other smaller countries are going. The back of your seat on the plane is going to get kicked by three or four small children behind you for at least 5.5 of the 6 hours you'll be there. Counter by affixing an air sickness bag to the seat in front of you and playing games like "Kick the Bag" and "Kick the Immediate Vicinity of the Bag." Once every fifty kicks or so, say this: "Don't kick that seat dear, that man might be trying to sleep." Make sure your child understands that's just part of the game and is not to be taken literally.

Establishing a Headquarters: The Wilderness Lodge is fantastic. If you're trying to collect things to complain about in your blog, don't stay there. While we're at it, let's take a minute and discuss the proper vacation attitude shall we? You're in Disney World. Your stroller is not a weapon. Strapping your child to it and waving it around to part crowds won't work, Moses, because at this point God is not on your side. If it's any consolation, people will begin to think of you in ways similar to the Old Testament prophets' contemporaries, exempli gratia: (1) You're a loon. (2) The world might be a better place if we stoned you.

On the Disney Currency Conversion Rate: Be prepared to wait in a line at the front gate while security guards check people's bags. Don't be fooled, their primary job isn't checking for dirty bombs in people's fanny packs. While you're distracted demonstrating how your tube of chapstick works, they're quietly slicing your wallet in the jugular. You're going to spend the rest of the day stumbling around the park, bleeding money in great throbbing spurts until you get dizzy and pass out. Like any traumatic experience, you're best off just trying not to think about it too much.

Tricks to Play on Yourself Part 1: As an adult approaching middle-age, you're going to reach a point in your Disney day where you need some sanity. You're not going to get it. Here's a secret that's kept me (narrowly) from descending to madness for three decades: When trapped in surreality, it's possible to simulate sanity for brief periods by escaping to an alternate fantasy. Once when I was stationed on a submarine for 5 days, I tried to read Clancy's Hunt for Red October. On the surface, the idea sounds like fun. It wasn't. Despite technical accuracies, actually working on a submarine was nothing like reading about it in a Clancy novel. Reading the book while you're there just makes that point all the more vivid. You need something that's going to add to your current experience. At Disney World, I read Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot. It's amusing to walk around the park at night trying to pick out the vampires. Snow White is awfully pale...and I swear one of the dwarves said his name was Thirsty...

Tricks to Play on Yourself Part 2: Pretend you're playing an MMO. You're not waiting in line to see a princess, you're camping a rare named mob. When it spawns, you're going to kill it, grab a screenshot, and collect it's ph4t l3wt. Make up words for weird landmarks: "Meet me at the petubelisk" (an obelisk in Epcot made out of petunias). Wish you had a speed buff, and when you see people in better shape than you, blame the developers for nerfing your class. Ignore the fact that you could have several other games for the amount you're spending on this one and that most of the time you're bored either traveling or waiting. Pretend that by thinking about a problem for a few minutes, you've somehow arrived at a better, easily-implemented, commercially-viable design than the experienced teams of people who do this professionally and that if you had a chance, you'd do it "right."

A Final Word: The Cirque du Soleil was just amazing. If you ever have a chance to see it, take it. It's like a Bruvel painting come to life. Even our daughter (age 3) sat transfixed for the full two hours. The show is spectacular. The music is live and fantastic. I'm at a place in my life where, for some reason, French circus music speaks to me.