7. Taking Ami under the Magic Kingdom.  That's right, under.

For those who don't know, I used to work at Walt Disney World at the MGM Studios (now I think they're calling it the Disney Studios, but at the time it was called the MGM Studios)... I was still a new hire, having just completed my initial 90 days and earning a photo cast member id and I wanted to celebrate by hanging out at my favorite place in the world, the Magic Kingdom.  I invited my friend Ami along as she had a special free pass that was about to expire and we spent the evening riding rides, eating food and having a great time.

Finally, we had ridden most of the rides we wanted to hit and the only one that was left was Space Mountain... on the other side of the park.  Add to that the fact that the Main Street Electrical Parade had started and we realized we weren't getting anywhere fast.  Then it occurred to me that there were tunnels that ran under the park and I was a cast member so I could actually go into them!  I didn't think it would be a problem to bring my friend along since I had no intention of going near "the zoo" (a Disney secret that I'd have to kill you if I told you about), so I asked a couple of local cast members to direct me to the nearest entrance to the underground and we were off.  I should note that no one asked to see my id when I was getting directions to the tunnels - this was obviously before 9-11.

We were enjoying a quick shortcut under the park before we emerged in the back of a restaurant near Space Mountain.  We hadn't walked ten paces when someone grabbed us and asked to see our ids.  No sweat, I'm a cast member so this was really not a big deal.  Wrong!  This Disney cop was not impressed with my credentials or the fact that I'd allowed a non-cast member to join me underground.  She quickly ushered us to an office upstairs in a dark building where she proceeded to interrogate us (very Law and Order).  It seems we'd been on camera when we were underground and someone had seen me pointing things out - that was evidently the code for "Communist" and they were on the scene to throw us out of the park - and that's what she did!  My id was confiscated and we were escorted to our car where I was told I wouldn't be working for Disney anymore.  Have a nice night!

I did manage to keep my job thanks to one of my managers who understood that I didn't know what I'd done was wrong since at the Studios guests are brought backstage all the time - I thought that was company policy!  Besides, just a couple of days after this incident I was going into rehearsals for the Beauty and the Beast Christmas show and it was too late to recast my part... she explained these things and I showed up on Monday for rehearsals where I also got my picture id back.  

Although this may have been one of my worst ideas, it's also one of my favorite stories... go figure!

8. Spending my lunch at the Magic Kingdom.  Going along with my previous story, I seemed to make a lot of unwise decisions involving Space Mountain.

It was an overcast Saturday and I was working at the Beauty and the Beast Christmas show.  My schedule was one where I performed for about 40 minutes, had an hour off, performed 40 minutes, had an hour off and on and on until the day was over.  I think I had a total of six performances that day and my lunch was about an hour and a half long.

This was not my first day doing this particular show and my friend Marcus Kelley was working with me so we decided that since we had an hour and a half for lunch, we wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom and ride Space Mountain!  After all, we could surely make the trip and be back in time for the next show - we were very good at our jobs!

We headed out to the Magic Kingdom, rode Space Mountain and then saw that we had enough time to get food, too–so we did!  Unfortunately, it was while leaving the restaurant that we realized we were suddenly running on a very tight schedule.  We raced to my car and sped off only to get stuck in out-of-towner traffic (a regular occurrence at Disney World)... time was ticking and we weren't moving fast enough.  We got back to the Studios and ran across the parking lot to get into the park.  We entered the park just as the show was starting!  (We still weren't ready to give up as the show actually started about ten minutes before we had to be on stage)  Then it started to rain.

The only thing that saved us in this situation was the fact that the show we were doing was performed outside and the rain caused them to cancel this performance.  When we arrived at the greenroom our manager (not the one who had previously saved my job) was there and she was not pleased.  She literally took both our heads and knocked them together and told us that if she ever had to shut a show down because we weren't there to perform we'd be done.

I was never late for another Christmas show the rest of that season.

9. Finding a parking spot on a well-lit corner.  I was scheduled to meet a friend of mine for dinner in North Hollywood so we could discuss a project he wanted to work on together.  I got there early enough to find a parking spot (a hard thing to do in certain areas of Los Angeles) and I spent a good 45-minutes trying to find one.  There was a particular spot that I kept driving past that was open but about two blocks from the restaurant and on a very dark street.  No, I figured I'd see if something opened up where it was better lit because I knew that would be safer.

As it turns out, a spot right around the corner from the restaurant opened up and it was directly under a street light.  I parked, thankful for my good fortune, and then had dinner with my friend.  When I returned, my Jeep was gone.  At first I thought I'd parked in a no parking zone but that wasn't the case - someone had stolen my Jeep!

While I did eventually recover it about a week later, it had been stripped and everything in it was gone.  That was really the greater violation–it's one thing to know that someone has your things but it's another to see the damage they've done to them.  Fortunately, no one got hurt.

10. Having Blair buy Eastland and turning it into a co-ed school.  Okay, maybe that wasn't my idea, but it was a pretty bad one.  After all, everyone knew Blaire was rich but did she have to prove it by buying everything?  And where were they left to go from there? Granted, the students for the planned spin-off included Seth Green, Mayin Bialik and Juliette Lewis, but would these kids have ever become the stars the did if this show had been successful?  Blair-turned-Mrs. Garrett just didn't make a whole lot of sense (though I suppose someone thought it was poetic justice) and it created a pretty silly ending to what was an overall above-average show.

There you go... ten!  You are welcome to recount but even if you don't count ten I'm not going to do anymore... and next time I'm shooting for a prompt that can be answered in one sitting...