He talked excitedly all the next week about his experiences, and how much he was looking forward to trying it again the next weekend. Feeding on his excitement, we looked around for inexpensive ways to add to his collection, since four pins may not be enough after all. (Hm, maybe I should retract that above paragraph about not spending more money?? Maybe this is the insidious point??) Rather than load up on pins sold at rack rate in the parks, though, we decided to look into used pins. After all, this was for trading, and if the previous week was any guide, my son wouldn't hold on to any of them forever.

So we glanced at eBay and only took a few minutes to find a deal that made sense for us: ten pins for $20. The actual composition of the pins did not matter one bit. Since we were trading with CMs, we didn't have to worry about finding popular or hard to locate pins. Unlike private citizens, CMs don't refuse a trade (they aren't allowed to), so we were happy to bump up the collection to 12 pins for our $45 total investment.

In retrospect, we should have started with eBay and then just bought a lanyard externally. We found one by accident the next week at a Publix on US-192 for $4, so we could have started out with even less initial investment, just $24 for ten pins and a lanyard.

Some of the pins from eBay were a touch beaten up, but then again, we found that to be true of some we'd gotten from CMs in the park, too. Not that it mattered much to the level of excitement for my fledgling trader! He traded fiendishly, seldom passing up the chance to make a trade. When asked, he claimed that the trading itself was the fun part, not whether he liked the pins or not. There was no telling what pin he'd like, and no pattern to his choices. He liked Tinker Bell as much as Donald Duck. Sometimes he'd choose a pretty boring one that my wife and I thought might have been on the CM's lanyard forever – no one would want it!

But now that I think about it, he was attracted to a particular kind of pin after all: ones with characters on them. He didn't seem to chase attractions pins unless there was also a character there. I suspect if we ever find something with both Test Track and Disney characters, he'll glom onto that one quickly. And I think he must have had SOME kind of internal quality control in action, for he did scan the offered pins on CM lanyards with some scrutiny, and hesitated every time.

His carefree, easy-come-easy-go attitude toward the pins meant he didn't mind getting one we'd consider boring, but it also meant he didn't mind giving away highly desirable ones. He had an amazing double-size Chernabog that he wanted to trade away for a much more sedate (and small) Mickey Mouse Club pin, and as he reached to unhook Chernabog my wife exclaimed "no, not that one!" but then retracted her statement, letting him know it was OK after all, since these were his toys. A nearby CM approved of the retraction, and told us that a lot of parents don't let the kids decide what to trade or not.

The CMs seemed to thrive on trading with my boy, perhaps because they fed off his excitement. I was no longer a front-line CM by the time pin trading came about, so I was never issued a lanyard and can only guess as to CM attitudes towards traders. But to judge by the happy and fun interactions my son had, this kind of trading probably ranks as one of the perks of the job. CMs feed off the happiness and attitude of the guests, and my son's enthusiasm seemed to be well-received by most CMs. Unless they were especially busy, that is, in which case we tried to steer him away, since we try to be sympathetic to every CM's situation and context.

One CM pulled my son aside and explained that the pin he was just now getting had a tiny Hidden Mickey on it, which is a symbol that the pin was never available for sale; it was exclusively doled out to those CMs wearing lanyards in the park. That struck me as a clever way to move the initiative forward, to drive more interaction and less simple collecting. It also made me realize there are probably several such initiatives and little hidden symbols on the pins that I knew nothing about. Still, it speaks to the inner Disney geek in my heart that I had a temporary and irrational thrill whenever we laid hands on a CM-issued pin, which was presumably hard to find. That happened perhaps four times on that first day of trading.

Despite my (slight) misgivings about the lack of permanence in the mentality of trading, there are some definite advantages to child-raising in this program too. Many kids, even ones exuberant in private, sometimes act shy to strangers. That can be a good thing, depending on the circumstances, but we want him comfortable talking to CMs, and pin trading has given him an accessible way to initiate social contact. He knows that to trade, he has to approach them, judge whether it's a good time to interact with them, and then politely ask if he can see their pins. In this fashion, we're slowly banishing shyness.

And he's learning etiquette. He's long known to say "please" and "thank you" (we're sticklers, you know!) but there are other subtle rules coming into play. Lanyards hang around the neck and pins rest on the chest, so for about half the population of CMs, it would be rude to simply point, and definitely not to touch without permission. So our child asks if he can see the pins, and the CMs grab the lanyard and raise it forward, away from their body, which both makes it easier to see and less physically invasive to point out the desired pin. Some CMs sport a rectangular "board" dangling from the belt rather than a lanyard, which seems less risky to just point at.

In the first week, when we only had four pins, we usually only found one "winner" pin per new CM, and didn't have to worry about bumping into the limit. Apparently CMs are told to only trade two pins at a time, possibly to make sure they aren't being monopolized by one guest for too long a time. Now that we have twelve pins, we might have enough to trade that the rule will start to apply to us!

There are doubtless many such rules, regulations, secrets, and bits of etiquette about this whole sub-culture that we haven't yet stumbled across. We're still learning. But I have found the experience eye-opening. Parents sometimes give the advice to visit Disney theme parks at the pace of the child, which is a good idea. We often let our son play at the coloring tables and do activities like KidCot, so we're old hats at letting him set the pace. We just never thought it would extend to pin trading. I'm not sure I'd advocate letting pin trading take over if you're visiting for a once in a lifetime vacation, but if you're coming back for the fifth time and haven't tried it, it might be a fit for you. It certainly was a fit for us locals.

This is one of those times when I'm happy to be persuaded to change my mind about an entrenched opinion. And also clearly one of those times when Disney knows what it's doing. And yet more proof, if we needed any, that the Disney characters have a stranglehold on the hearts and minds of our children. Not that it's a bad thing. If it makes them happy, who are we to judge?

Lou Mongello, the author of the WDW Trivia Books, has a new product out. It's a desk calendar for 2009; the tidbit-per-day type with rip-away pages, one for each day. You've seen the type before with comic strips (The Far Side leaps to mind), and Lou's is similar in look and feel. Rather than oversize graphics, though, his has just words dominating the page. Well, most of the time. Many of the pages are half blank, because the font is so small. There are some puzzles and games here and there, and quite a few historical factoids. The latter is probably to be expected in a daily calendar – why not celebrate milestones and anniversaries?

But just as often, the trivia factoid is random and unrelated to the day/date. Let me just jump around randomly and type up what I find on some pages:

Seems to me that the vast majority of people will learn at least a little something in a product like this. It may be, if you've already got an encyclopedic knowledge of WDW, that all you might learn will be scraps of place names here and there, but mere mortals will probably not know nearly half of the stuff here, at least not the exact details.

Lou's trivia logo, a question mark with mouse ears that sits atop a stylized "world" symbol, appears in a corner of the pages. And, delightfully, it's a flip-page animation. Each drawing is slightly different on the subsequent page, so if you flip through them quickly, you'll see the trivia logo dance and jump around. It's a nice touch that recalls Disney's animation roots nicely.

The pages seem to come off easily, perhaps too easily. In fact, with only minimal handling the entire block of pages detached from the backing, as if there hadn't been enough glue in the production. This wasn't a deal-breaker, though, because the block of pages sits atop a little ledge anyway.

On the whole, it's a worthwhile purchase. At around $10, it's not bargain priced, especially since unlike a book, it's gone at the end of the year. But for the Disney fan who has everything, this may be just the ticket.

As announced previously, I'm running a contest. You write and submit fan fiction stories to me by email, and the best one will win a prize (I'll cobble together a few books and collectibles). Best of all, I'll run the winning story in a future MiceAge column. Who knows? If we get several good ones, I may just make it a running feature every so often.

There are some ground rules:

The final requirement above is to see how creative you can be in slipping in the references! I got this idea from The Plot Thickens, a collection of mystery short stories with the requirement that every story had to mention a thick fog, a thick book, and a thick steak. Everything else was up to the writers. The diversity of stories was great, and the reader experience included a kind of fun hunt for the required components (some of which were central, and some of which were mentioned only very briefly). Sure, it was a gimmick, but it was fun and it worked.

Your mention of a happy person, a happy coincidence, and a happy ending don't have to come in that order, and most authors will spread them out over the story rather than mention them all at once. Note that you don't have to actually *have* a happy ending, just that you must mention the words "happy ending." The rest of the sentence is up to you, and could in fact turn out to be a dark and pessimistic sentence if worded the right way! A few authors might be able to get away with paraphrasing or just leaving the required terms implied, but most will use the required phrases verbatim.

Good luck! Start sending in those submissions! Only a couple of weeks remaining!

Kevin is the author of many books on Disney theme parks, including:

• Mouse Trap: Memoir of a Disneyland Cast Member provides the first authentic glimpse of what it's like to work at Disneyland.
• Tokyo Disney Made Easy is a travel guide to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySeas, written to make the entire trip stress-free for non-speakers of Japanese.
• Magic Quizdom offers an exhaustive trivia quiz on Disneyland park, with expansive paragraph-length answers that flesh out the fuller story on this place rich with details.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Disneyland is a list-oriented book that covers ground left intentionally unexposed in the trivia book, namely the tributes and homages around Disneyland, especially to past rides and attractions.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World follows the example of the Disneyland book, detailing tributes and homages in the four Disney World parks.

More information on the above books, along with ordering options are at this link. Kevin is currently working on other theme park related books, and expects the next one to be published soon.