the boid

He might have been a long-lost member of the Gambino crime family; tall and broad-shouldered, tan, gaunt, with hair like an oil slick, and shifty eyes that promised a curb-stomping to the first person that gave him any guff. In his white linen shirt, tight chinos, and loafers, he leaned, arms crossed, against the railing of the queue, while his beleaguered-looking wife and three daughters stared in opposite directions, markedly avoiding his gaze.

When the conductor, a bespectacled boy no older than nineteen, approached the man, and politely asked if he'd fold up his unoccupied stroller, the man replied, in a thick New York accent, and loud enough for everyone in line to hear:

"You don't tell me what to do, Chaalee."

The crowd shifted, uneasily. The man's wife touched his arm and whispered in his ear.

"What", he continued, "I'm gonna come here and have this guy tell me what to do? I'll fold it up when I'm ready. 'Fold it up', get a load of this guy. I'll fold you up, Chaalee."

Defeated, the conductor slunk away down the platform.

Moments later, a small, faux steam engine pulled in to the station. The man and his family moved to the front of the line, but were held back just short of boarding. As the train departed Mickey's Toontown for Frontierland, the man's youngest daughter waved goodbye to the passengers. She was smiling, sweetly.

Her father was smiling, too.

"Are you flippin' them the boid, honey?" he asked. "Ha, ha, look, she's flippin' them the boid."