The Guest Appearance

Remember when my family was on vacation in Los Angeles last summer? While we were there, I got a call from one of my hometown friends, a gal named Liane. She wanted to know if I was interested in meeting up for lunch while I was in town. I told her that I could do it, but that I would have to get a babysitter. She sent me directions to her office and told me to bring the kids.

"They'll be fine," she said.
"Where do you work these days?" I asked.
"They'll be fine!" she said again and hung up the phone.

Thirty minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of Disney Animation Studios in Burbank.

The next hour was a jealous blur. After showing us her super cool office which was filled with toys, Liane took us upstairs to meet some of her animator friends, who just happened to be sketching the last scene of The Princess and the Frog. A nearby vending machine stocked with candy bars and gummy Lifesavers prevented my children from appreciating the magnitude of what they were witnessing. While they dug through my purse for loose change, I tried not to act how I felt, which was like a six-year-old on a sugar rush.

"This is the coolest thing I have ever seen," I said a million times.

After I repeated this phrase a few million more times, the man smiled politely and got up to use the bathroom.

I must have made quite the impression on the animator because when I went to see the movie on Saturday with my kids, I saw that he had drawn me into the last scene. If you squint and cover your right eye and play the scene backward and in slow motion, you'll see a more modestly dressed Meanest Mom avatar sprint across the bottom of the screen.

At least that's what I'm telling all my friends.