As I talked to them, out of the corner of my eye I kept seeing the two guys behind us doing weird things. The guy in the aviator hat leaned over the railing and touched a plant. The guy with a beard jumped up and hit a sign. They kept making eye contact with each other as they were apparently taking turns touching things. Then I thought I saw the guy in the aviator hat poke Abby’s backpack and then look at his friend.
I continued to ignore them until the guy with the beard intentionally, and very obviously, dropped a bottle cap right next to Kri’s foot and bent down to pick it up.
We all looked at the guys.
“Are you playing a game or something?” I asked.
“Yeah,” they told us without hesitation. “It’s the touching game.”
“So…you just touch people and things?”
“Yeah,” they said. “It’s really good to play in crowded places like amusement parks.”
As the guys continued to touch people and things in line, they told us all about the touching game. Apparently it’s a game they play in amusement parks, in church, in museums, and anywhere else where there are a lot of people.
We apparently had no choice in the matter; we were now a part of the touching game. As we all waited for the ride, we tried to touch one another and other people without being noticed.
As the game continued, we began making small talk with our new friends. Abby and I told them where we were from, and the bearded guy told us they were from Ohio. Minutes later, however, he showed us his California license.
“You’re not from Ohio…”
“No, we’re not,” aviator hat guy told us. He seemed like the more reliable of the two.
We talked with them until we finally boarded our submarine, where the guys were upset that there was not really much to touch.
“Pirates of the Caribbean is the best ride for the touching game,” they told us. “You can touch everything on that ride!”
However, they high fived me when I touched our submarine operator, who was standing right behind me.
After the ride we waved goodbye to our line friends.
“Unless you want to go on a couple more rides with us…”
“Where are you going?” I asked. “We’re heading to Space Mountain.”
And just like that, we headed over to Space Mountain with our new friends. We made a stop at the Jedi Training Academy and watched the show before getting in line for the ride.
And it was in the line for Space Mountain, about two hours after we had met these guys, that we realized that none of us knew one another’s names. We introduced ourselves and learned that the bearded guy’s name was Ates (pronounced ah-TESH, or TESH for short) and the guy in the aviator hat was named Albert.
“Are you Mormon?” Ates kept asking me as we waited in line.
“No!” I told him after the fourth time. “Why do you keep asking me if I’m Mormon?”
“Are you Mormon?” Kri asked.
“Yes,” he said.
However, we soon learned from Albert that Ates is Catholic.
We ended up hanging out with these guys for the remainder of our time in Disneyland. By the end of the night there were jokes about Albert marrying and having children with all three of us girls. Ates even stopped lying to us. They came to dinner with us, where we had some surprisingly deep conversations, considering they were people who had been strangers just hours ago.
I am now Facebook friends with both of them and have Albert’s phone number. We also have tentative plans to meet up with them when we go to Disneyland again next month. It just goes to show that you never know when, where (or how!) you’ll meet cool people.
“Yeah,” Ates said after dinner before Abby, Kri, and I left for San Diego. “Usually when people catch us playing the touching game it means we need to run away. This was really cool.”
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| Ates, Albert, Abby, Kri, and me! Yay for new friends! |
Sounds like your meeting really interesting people. Very interesting.
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