My Tiny Disney Magic Kingdom Slide

A couple of years ago, my Mother asked me to clean out an area of her basement we referred to as “the closet”. It was this partially walled-off area in our unfinished where we shoved large items that we no longer used, but for some reason did not want to throw away. I found all sorts of treasure down there that weekend, but one of the more shocking pieces I pulled from the twisted mess of basement junk was a slide that my Mother had gotten for me at a Flea Market when I was a kid.

I say shocking because I remember this thing well. I would climb up the ladder and slide down it again and again for hours at a time. In my mind, it was a towering piece of Disney’s Magic Kingdom that somehow found its way to my family’s yard. In reality, it was tiny! It barely came up to my waist. I remember pulling it out and just staring at it in disbelief.

Knowing how small it was, didn’t diminish the fun I had on it as a kid. But seeing it through my adult eyes sort of ruined my image of it and I think this is one of those rare instances where I would have preferred to not rediscover a childhood toy.