My Life as a Disney Model

After crossing the finish line of the Walt Disney World Marathon, I picked up my Mickey medal and was heading over to the tent to get my Goofy medal. A man came up next to me and started chatting to me as I walked. At first I thought he was one of those Disney survey people who ask you how you enjoyed the meal you just ate or the wait for the ride your just rode. Instead, he was asking me if I could have my picture taken for possible use in Disney advertising/promotional materials.

He made me sign a waiver and ushered me over to a special tent. There was a photographer there and a big white backdrop. The photographer had me smile, strike a muscle pose, and asked me to "do something crazy" (which I believe was me just smiling a little wider -- Sorry, I was frozen stiff and had just ran a marathon. I wasn't firing on all cylinders there).

Later on I was thinking about it, and got all excited. I was a DISNEY MODEL!! I mean, I had signed my life away in that waiver and was a bonafide Disney model. Never mind that the man had a stack of waivers over an inch thick and had undoubtedly asked hundreds of people to have their photos taken. Even if my photo was buried forever I was a Disney model.

I figured I had been asked to have my photo taken because I was sporting these puppies:

Oh, yeah! Get into the Disney spirit and you, too, can be a Disney model!

A few weeks later I was looking at Runnersworld.com and saw a blurb about the Disney Marathon. The blurb took you to a slide show of photos which said something like, "After the Disney Marathon we took photographs of some of the runners and asked them to do what came naturally. Here are some of the results."

Ooh! This sounded like what I had done! I went through the slideshow and sadly came upon this:

This guy obviously exponentially trumped my little Goofy headband. With that, my dream of being a printed Disney model officially ended.

But whatever. I am a Disney model and am holding onto that. I may even add it to my resume.