I have a fear of boats.

(Titaniphobia?)

It’s not a secret and honestly, I’ve stopped making apologies for being a control freak. Because I live in the nosebleeds of Toronto (read: on dry land) (read: I’m not a character on The OC) (read: No one invites me on free cruises) it typically doesn’t affect my day-to-day life too much. It becomes an occasional thing when family and friends want to visit the Toronto islands once yearly and I  deep breathe my way through the entire, um, 8 minute ferry ride over. So, what I’m saying is that it’s a phobia that’s not entirely crippling—it’s more funny than anything.

Funny, of course, until you find yourself at Walt Disney World and have three small people pushing you into a line for The Pirates of the Caribbean ride. No big deal, you tell yourself. After all, you waited almost an hour the night before to go on some similar ride at Hollywood Studios and it turned out to be the very worst attraction of your entire trip—you just stood in a room while a hologram of Captain Jack Sparrow told you not to be afraid of a hologram of an eel and told you not to listen to the mermaids singing (that “ride” was a total stinker. If you find yourself at Hollywood Studios, it’s the one to skip. Well, you can also skip The Tower of Terror, especially if you’ve just eaten lunch and you’d like to keep it inside of your person.)

But, because I was trying to be agreeable and I was wearing my YOLO hat (Note: I WAS NOT WEARING A YOLO HAT), I waited rather nervously in the hour-long ride to willingly board a boat that apparently drops 14 feet over a waterfall.

Lucky me.

We get into our boats and ride slowly through a fake waterfall and enter a large, dark cavern filled with skeletons, a mechanical bird, and mermaid singing.

I can do this, I thought. Easy peasy!

And then we stopped.

“Sorry for the delay folks, we’ll get your ride moving for you any moment. Sit tight and please don’t stand in the boats.”

“Sorry for the delay folks, we’ll get your ride moving for you any moment. Sit tight and please DON’T STAND.”

“STOP STANDING DAMMIT.”

“Sorry for the delay folks, we’re going to power down right about now, but for your listening pleasure, we’re going to keep the mermaid singing. Stop standing.”

“Sorry for the delay folks, but you may find your boats floating off into nowhere and possibly backwards. We’re going to turn on the lights in this cavern so you can lose all future excitement about this ride.”

“Sorry for the delay folks, but it seems that we can’t figure out how to get your boats OUT of this cavern so we are just going to sit here for an extended period of time while our teenaged staff are going to put on their fly-fishing pants and try to see about wading you out of the water.”

“Jack. Jack! I will never let go. I will never let go. Oh wait, sorry. That’s the wrong message.”

“Sorry for the delay folks, but we’re now working on the rescue mission.”

“Sorry for the delay folks, but we’re really sorry about this and we are going to give you fifteen free fast passes so you can enjoy the rest of your day at Disney World.”

Interesting. So, I didn’t have to go over a 14-foot waterfall. And I got free fast passes. And I got a great story out of this. And I got rescues by teenagers in wading pants.

Disney is officially my favorite.

But I still don’t like boats.