My Year With The Mouse

Main Street, U.S.A. is supposed to be a replica of a typical Midwestern main street in 1908.

About halfway down Main Street you get to the lockers, which are set back from the regular street by an entrance that is more or less blocked by a fruit cart.

The lockers are cleverly hidden by this 1908-reproduction fruit cart

I’ve always found the fruit cart to be quite interesting. I mean, obviously Disneyland put them in in response to guests asking for more healthy options, but wow

I'm pretty sure you could have purchased an entire pear tree for $1.79 back in 1908. Partridge not included.

Like okay, I know that food and stuff in the park is excessive, and I’m okay with excessive, but this just seems excessively excessive to me. I mean, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere, and for me, that line is $1.79 for a banana. Particularly since there’s a Vons grocery store 2 miles away where you can get this:

69 cents a pound

And not like I’m the person who’s all “save a ton of money by buying all of your lunches beforehand” when it’s terribly inconvenient to do so (even though you can), but if you don’t want to pay $1.79 for a banana, here you go:

Alternately, Vons delivers

There are also other foods on the fruit cart.

Shockingly, Vons has these for cheaper too

Moving past the fruit cart into what I can only assume is supposed to be an alley, you reach the lockers.

Main streets in 1908 were not known for their lockers, but one does what one can, I suppose

Also that’s a key in the lock above the doorway. How cute!

You can actually pay for your locker by credit card. Gone are the days when you just shoved your quarters into the locker’s door and then pulled out your key attached to a safety pin and hoped to God you didn’t lose it. Now it’s all high tech.

It's not an ATM, it's a locker machine

And in a very un-Disney-like fashion, the lockers actually look like a prison.

It's a mini-San Quentin for all of your stuff-holding needs

You can also find these quaint, old-fashioned things:

Yes, kiddies--these are called "pay phones." Go ask Grandma how they work.

I really never realized that there is a complete dearth of pay phones these days until a friend of mine was visiting from another country and did not have a cell phone and had to call me from pay phones to arrange a get-together.

I’m sure one day these will be replaced, like with some kind of electric visor you put over your head and then you just think about the person you’d like to call and it dials them directly. Until then, bring your quarters.

And here’s where we get to the surprise. Right next to the lockers is an ice cream window!

Well hello, delicious frozen treat vendor! Fancy meeting you here!

File that one under “things I never knew existed.”

I'll come and see you when you're open

Basically all of the buildings back here are fake with false fronts, so it never occurred to me that there might be a real, functioning thing here. Particularly since I have no need to put my stuff in jail a locker.

Surprise!