These things are all extremely important.

Here, in the cold part of the world, on a journey that I would not in any way describe as a vacation, we have some missions. Mission number 1 (tomorrow as I writing this, yesterday as you’re reading it), we must drive to an outlet mall and obtain a small Goofy plush at the Disney store. This is crazy important. My niece obtained all the other small Disney plushies but they didn’t have Goofy. She explained this, plaintively, over Skype, and my dad told her he would buy her Goofy. That was like 9 months ago and she didn’t forget. She’s 4.

The next day, we must take the train. We don’t know where we’re taking the train, or why. The train is pretty much the goal, just to ride a train, because my nephews didn’t get to ride the train last time. Hopefully the train goes somewhere interesting.

It’s very lovely for the kids, and, as any adult with kids and a good relationship with their parents knows, there’s something very special about having a grandparent. Here are these people who will just give the kids whatever they ask for, all the time, most particularly stuff you couldn’t have gotten from them when you were a kid. Drive to an outlet mall and buy me a toy so I can complete my collection? My dad would have laughed his head off 35 years ago.

I’m sort of worried about what happens if we get to the outlet mall and they don’t have Goofy.

If I’m lucky, I’ll get a pair of pants that fit.

And that is a great journey for a kid: getting that toy so you have the whole set? Golden. Adults don’t get to experience that kind of joy, by and large. My parents presents to me are like: a month’s mortgage payment. Which–don’t get me wrong, that’s great stuff–but it’s not fun. It just reminds me about how much the mortgage is. And also that I will never again be as excited about anything as my niece is about obtaining this $5 doll.

Personally, I always found Goofy sort of creepy.

The third item in this image is a cheap racetrack, where Sonic the Hedgehog and Knuckles are racing Dragon. It’s a lame track–the pieces don’t hold together and the cars run on batteries, and without batteries the back wheels don’t turn at all. But when you’re 4, you don’t care. You just keep pushing this thing in circles, and you force other to push too.

Let’s take a moment to reflect that the character Knuckles got his name apparently because he wears gloves with spikes on the knuckles. It’s sort of like the monkey in Dora the Explorer being called Boots. Presumably because he wears boots. So…what did they call them before they obtained these articles of clothing? What if he takes off the boots? Who is he? Does he has an identity crisis without his footwear of choice?

I seem to be extraordinarily tired.