Costume Conundrum

Two weeks ago when my family and I headed out for our vacation at Walt Disney World, I had one mission. No, not to have a magical time with my family, but rather to find myself one of those nifty princess costumes I saw all the runners wearing during last year’s Princess Half Marathon. Now anyone who knows me knows how much I hate to spend money—I mean really hate to spend money. So the fact that I was willing to plunk down some hard earned cash for something that in all likelihood I will only wear once in my life was in and of itself a bit of a miracle.

I started my hunt at, where else, Magic Kingdom—home of all things Disney-y and princess-y, right? Wrong. I went into the first store and wandered around. Sure, there were tons and tons of princess dresses and skirts--for little girls. In the adult section? Not so much.

“Excuse me,” I said to one of the workers. “I’m going to run the Princess Half Marathon in February and they always have such cool costumes. Where can I get one of those?”

I expected her to immediately whisk me off to the princess costume section that I obviously had missed on my first look around. Um, no. Instead I got a big ol’ blank stare.

O.K., maybe I just had the wrong store or the wrong worker. After all, she did seem a little young. Or maybe it was because she was seasonal and didn’t really know the merchandise.

I tried another store, and got another blank stare. Or maybe it was more of a “What kind of sicko are you?” kind of stare. I’m not really sure.

Not to be deterred, though, I pressed on. Two more stores. Two more stares.

Finally, in desperation, I grabbed the XL size of the kids skirt and tried to stuff myself into it. I quickly discovered that I apparently haven’t been training hard enough. In fact, I don’t think anyone has ever looked more un-princessy than I did in that Snow White skirt.

Most magical place on earth? Yeah right. If it was that skirt would have fit.

And so this princess left Disney--costumeless and a little uninspired knowing that if I was going to become a princess for this race it was entirely up to me. Not a pleasant realization for someone who was the only Girl Scout in the troop who had her badges stapled on. And the last time I used a sewing machine I accidentally put the needle through my finger. (Did you know that sucker comes flying down if you accidentally press your leg against that thingy underneath the machine? Yeah, take it from me, it does.)

So here I stand, costumeless, but undeterred nonetheless. Stay tuned for what comes next. It could get interesting.