Dude, Where’s My Canoe?
It takes a certain kind of person to steal from the Magic
Kingdom.
That person is Scott DesBois.
Four years ago, on a schools-out trip to southern California
with his church youth group, DesBois might as well have taken the
white gloves right off of Mickey’s hands and the polka dots right
off of Minnie’s dress.
In the light of the heavy afternoon sun, Scott and a group of
friends were walking through Disneyland and noticed a bunch of
canoes tied to a dock. After walking down the stairs to the ride,
they realized it was closed.
However, this did not deter the group of young hooligans looking
for a good time.
“I mean, the canoes were only tied to the dock with a rope and
the paddles were right their underneath, so we were like, ‘Dude, we
could totally steal a canoe,'” DesBois said.
DesBois and his five partners in family-fun-park crime, which
included his youth group leader, Steve, returned to the lagoon
around 9:30 p.m. and all piled into one big canoe.
But their fun was short-lived.
“We didn’t get more than fifty feet from the dock when this huge
spotlight just hit us,” DesBois said. “This voice came over the
loudspeakers and told us to come back to the dock. I was
pissed.”
Once they returned to shore, canoe heist foiled, two Disneyland
security personnel greeted them and asked what they thought they
were doing.
Having seen a sign earlier advertising a canoe race for the next
day, Steve quickly replied that they were practicing for the race,
but the guards weren’t having it. The canoe-jackers were then
escorted behind stages and through the dark corners of Disneyland
to the “interrogation” rooms.
Once in the rooms, the culprits were surrounded by paintings of
Disney characters and beanbag chairs were stuffed in the corner,
making them feel not so much like criminals as two year olds being
sent to their rooms for being bad.
“I was with my buddies Will and Ben, and the guard kept trying
to intimidate us, but it’s kind of hard to be intimidated when
Dumbo and Mickey are all over the walls,” DesBois said. “When they
called our parents, everyone just laughed.”
Even though the boys were in the custody of the cartoon cops,
the shenanigans didn’t come to an end.
One girl that was in on the heist was freaking out because she
knew she would be in trouble if the guards got a hold of her
grandma back in Colorado. But, youth group leader Steve came to the
rescue.
“Every time the guards would dial the number, Steve would dial
it on his cell phone, so they just kept getting a busy signal. It
was diabolical,” DesBois said.
Once the phone calls were done, the group was escorted out of
the park and placed on the official Disneyland record books for ten
years. Looking back on the event, DesBois can express nothing but
disappointment.
“I wanted to circle the lagoon so bad, it would’ve been
awesome.”
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