The Happiest Place on Earth | Teen Ink

The Happiest Place on Earth

February 4, 2024
By makaylasalmonds BRONZE, Brooklyn, New York
makaylasalmonds BRONZE, Brooklyn, New York
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Come one, come all!

We just ask your income tax,

and of course,

the only day of leave you can afford this year.

Bring your family,

and by family we mean family of four,

so we hope you’re married (who isn’t?)

Plan for spring break, 

if not winter recess (in case you can’t save).

Just don’t take the kids out of school:

you can’t jeopardize their careers.

Trust us, they’ll need to make more than you ever will.


Now enough of that,

we offer photos with the life-sized puffed-belly rodent

(not like ones with scummed-up trunks in Times Square, no).

It’ll cost you no more than 120 minutes of your time:

exactly 2 hours of your salary,

7200 seconds of your life.

(Fun fact, you’re not getting them back!)

Never fear if you’re impatient,

for a small fee we can cut this down by a whopping 60 minutes!

Just chipping away at the money you’ll make again soon, right?

(Aren’t we so kind?)

All you do in life is wait, so, we don’t see what makes this much different.

Waiting for your shift to end,

for retirement,

for God to save you.


Smile! Ask a fellow member of the matrix to snap you and your family,

happy.

Why would you be anything else in front of those blue-roofed towers?

We know, we know,

it’s all just pretend,

but your followers don’t.

Show your co-workers that your life that is more than clocking in and out,

that you’re more 

than a worker.

You fund your company’s dreams,

don’t you think its time to fund your own?


Please don’t argue with your husband today

(we get, you’ve put off a divorce for 5 years);

you have 364 other days to do so, you’ll survive. 

After all, it’s not our fault you can’t endure this economy alone,

so don’t scare our cotton-ball shoed fairy!

Speaking of economy, still waiting for this installment of your monthly payment plan,

which did we mention,

is more than your stipend… 

how did you plan to pay this?

(Fireworks comes at a cost!)

Assuming you’ll work more hours,

despite already working many.

It’s not that serious:

Just less time with your family,

less time to eat,

less sleep,

less happy.


Office work, office work, more, office work!

Papers, papers, flying everywhere!

Phone calls, incoming! Pick-up-the-phone!

Don’t stop typing! Maybe they’ll give you a raise for your speed, and efforts

but you know

they never 

will.


They’ll never make you happy.

No one will ever make you happy,

nothing will ever make you happy,

but we will,

just for a day.

Because this

is your dream,

the American dream:

to be happy,

just for a day.

So it is with great pleasure that we welcome you

to “The Happiest Place on Earth”!


The author's comments:

Americans have only ever dreamed of earning just enough to drag their families to Walt Disney World, to snap shots at the Cinderella Castle and with the famous Mickey Mouse. What we don't consider? That life will only be good just for a day. After that? It's back to working 9-5's, struggling financially, and watching relationships crumble. Thanks to consumer capitalism, everyone's convinced that this trip is something they need, and that this is going to make everything better. Why are we running from the problem? People are giving up their ambitions for lives that "work" in this corrupted economy, despite them not necessarily being what they wanted. To the point, where the only goal in life is to escape... to a giant rodent?


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