Hey Mickey

Last weekend my friend Rhonda brought her kid Zara to Disneyland and I met up with them. We did this two years ago too, and I had kind of a personality renaissance and realized I could be one of those people who really likes Disneyland and still be okay with myself. I've been a couple times since, with Phil, as a pre-production bonding experiment before 546 (smartest producing move we made) and with my parents (rained, cold, boulder malfunctioned in the Temple of Doom), and with Katie (sunny and fun) but what I learned is that no day in Disneyland can compare with the day you spend there with a little kid.

I think I talked before about how much more fun each ride is when it involves a child shrieking, "I want to sit with Robyn!!!" while you're in line. But really, a kid adds fun to the entire day. For example:

INT. BATHROOM - DAY

I enter.

Zara: Do you have to go to the bathroom?

Me: Yes

Zara: Why?

Me: (thinking) Uh, same reason anyone has to go to the bathroom. And because I drank a lot of water in the car on the way over.

Zara: Oh.

No adult is going to have this conversation with you. It's too weird.


Rhonda refers to these as "Zara's Nanny McPhee teeth".

Even people's kids you don't know are spectacularly hilarious. When we were in the Tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room drinking pineapple floats and giving ourselves type 2 diabetes, a little boy got so freaked out at the plastic singing parrots that he wouldn't stop screaming and trying to burrow into his mother's chest. They eventually left, but not before I ceded him the point that the robotic parrots with their national identities (florid, Parisian Pierre; jovial, Irish Michael; terse, German Fritz; and the ringmaster Jose) are kind of morose and weird. Maybe he was freaked out by the intense 50s-ness of the room. I always think a little Sambo's going to jump out and start dancing and that would be received as very droll and delightful and we'd all chuckle and then go have a Mai Tai on the veranda.

And no one has a voracious appetite for spinny rides that make you want to hurl like a little kid. This can be both good and bad. I'm looking forward to her getting a voracious appetite for roller coasters.