I was lying in a pool of my own sweat, clutching ibuprofen in one hand, allergy drops in the other and desperately grasping for the bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade just out of reach. I smelled of corn dogs and sunscreen, and "It's a Small World After All" was playing on a loop inside my head.

My little brother, all of nine years old, leaned over me and demanded, "What are we doing next?" He smelled like corn dogs, too, but somehow that works better when you still have to stand next to the yard stick that says, "You must be this tall to ride this ride."

We'd been up since six. I rode the Teacups, Space Mountain, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Pirates of the Carribean and the Indiana Jones jeep thingy. I watched "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" in 3D, ate a $15 hamburger and sat through the twice-a-day family fun parade.

My early morning enthusiasm had met head-on with my 30-year-old reality. I needed a drink. Bad. By seven o'clock, I had to remove and discard my contacts while standing in line for the Star Wars flight simulator. They had become so coated in Pluto fur dander and airborne cotton candy residue that I could not stand to have them in my eyes for one more second, even if it meant negotiating Fantasyland in a near-sighted squint.

As it turns out, once one has reached the point of attempted Cinderella-cide, walking around like the fourth blind mouse is preferable. Takes the sting out of the forced frivolity. It does not, however, take the sting out of your sunburn.

"What are we doing next?" turned out to be go-karts, mini-golf, beach, pool, Pirates of the Carribean - the movie, baseball, endless hours of cartoons, video games and enough chicken fingers to sicken Col. Sanders. It turns out nine year olds eat only chicken fingers, much like my car only takes unleaded gasoline. And they will not think twice about scowling at the dinner you just spent an hour fixing and saying, "Does this have onions in it? I don't eat onions," which will cause any normal adult to swig the cooking sherry.

So that's where I've been for the past week or so. I love him. I do. He's pretty awesome as far as nine year olds go. But right now, I need a nap, a bottle of vodka and some birth control pills.