Mickey Mouse is dead. 'Cause I ate him for dinner.

I have lived in Southern California for pretty damn close to 36 years. Since birth, actually. In all that time, never have I EVER set foot into Disneyland, even though it is only two and a half hours from me if traffic is cooperating with you. (Read: Never in the last 15 years unless you have some kind of a magic carpet that will take you over gridlock.) And I was perfectly happy in this decision. As I've gotten older, it's almost been a badge of pride for me. I've NEVER been to Disneyland, bitches, and I'm never going to! Nyah! (insert childish act of sticking out tongue here)

Then I had a husband. And then children. All three of whom have been indoctrinated by the cult of Disney that you MUST absolutely go to Disneyland if you ever want to have fun at all.

And if you don't go to Disneyland, then you must be some kind of Communist or something.

(Being called a Communist by your children is quite possibly the most interesting thing I have ever experienced, by the way. They ran giggling from the room when I told them that they would have to sleep with the sheep for the rest of their lives for that remark. Their father put them up to it. Rat bastard! Maybe I should have told him that HE would have to sleep with the sheep. Harrumph!)

Since Thing Two managed to get straight A's last year in school (a feat *I* never accomplished in my entire life), she was promised that she would get to go to a theme park this summer. Initially, the list of parks she was given to choose from did not include the dreaded D-word. However, Thing One batted her little eyelashes and suckered daddy into accidentally letting the D-word slip, and my fate was sealed from that moment. Disneyland it was.

Initially, I disavowed any part of this trek. It was going to be a one-day excursion, and The Husband was going to take one for the team and take the two girls and go. Plus, I pulled the "I'm still recovering from surgery" card (insert Scarlett O'Hara fainting act here) and whined about needing a nap halfway through the day still (no lie) and that I "Just couldn't make it." I've never been more of a drama queen in my life, people. No way in hell were you taking me to this place. Nope. Not going there. Ever.

Then The Husband got the bright idea to make this a vacation instead of a day-trip. He didn't want to deal with getting up at o'dark-thirty in the morning, driving down to Anaheim, going all day long, and then driving all the way back. So he wanted to get a hotel. And if he got a hotel, then OF COURSE I had no excuse not to go because naptime? Can be accomplished when you have a hotel room. And then he sweetened the pot by saying that he would get me some spa treatments if I tagged along. I didn't even have to go into the park if I didn't want to. Grrrrrr. Fine. I'll go. I'm NOT going into Disneyland, but I'll go with you. I needed some pampering anyway. My feet are terrible! Hmph!

So The Husband calls Disney and sets up our reservation at Disney's Grand California Hotel and Spa. He got two-day hopper passes for the three of them so that they could visit both Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure. I was set up for a mani and pedi at the hotel's spa, and life was grand. Until we got that letter in the mail the day we were going to leave.

After several hours of calls to and from Disney, a new package for our entertainment was created. In order to apologize for their screwup, we were upgraded to the concierge package with the suite, a free meal at Ariel's Grotto with the Disney Princesses (score for my girls!) and they threw in park hopper tickets for me as well. Hrm. We'll see about that. With my spa treatments, I really won't be able to get into the park(s) much at all, so maybe I'll still miss out. It's all good.

On the drive down there (Four and a half freaking hours because of gridlock. SO glad I don't live down there!) The Husband starts getting the wacky idea that maybe we should stay a bit longer. It was going to be our last thing for the summer, and he wanted to make things less rushed. As it stood, we were only booked for two nights, which meant that either they would have to hit one of the parks when they got there for only part of the day and then spend the next day at the other park. He wanted two full days to go to the parks. Fine. It's only money, right? Plus we were going to get there too late to fully enjoy the tickets that night. And one more way for me to avoid actually entering Disneyland, right?

We FINALLY get there, somehow manage to get mostly lost getting to the freaking hotel (Better signs would help, Disney! Gah! And Husband? How in the HELL do you expect me to know my way around someplace when I have NEVER BEEN THERE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!?!?), and eventually check in. Let me say that the Grand Californian is one of the most beautiful resort hotels I have been in to date - and we like going to nice and beautiful hotels. The arts and crafts style that they used while kind of out of place in a hotel of this magnitude, was very lovely. There definitely was no expense spared in getting the look they wanted. And it shows on each and every hotel bill. Ooof! We get to the room, and again, very lovely and spacious. Not quite as spacious as our suite that we scored at the JW Marriott in Las Vegas with our Marriott points, but very, very nice indeed.

As a part of the concierge package, we get free access to their "club." This club basically provides snackage for you all. Day. Long. In the morning, continental breakfast along with cold cereal. Late morning to early afternoon, tea sandwiches and pastries. Late afternoon to early evening, PB&J sandwiches and a hot hors d'ouvre. Evening, milk and cookies along with bedtime stories/songs for the kiddies. And then at 9:25, you could watch the Disneyland fireworks from the club balcony with the music they play in the park piped in. If you were so inclined, you wouldn't have to eat anywhere else your entire stay. They provide chilled bottled water and the little small bottles of soda (all Coca-Cola products, of course!) for you to have at any time. During the late afternoon you could get beer, and in the evening you could get liquors like Kahlua, Baileys and Grand Margniere. This? Was some serious score-age, people. Well worth being "inconvenienced" by having our trip weekend changed because of their screw-up. They can inconvenience me anytime they want to!

We get settled into our room, get the girls in their jammies and head on out for milk and cookies for them. All before dinner, of course. We're just terrible parents, ya know? The girls have a great time with the stories, and stuff themselves silly on cookies. Mom and dad are relaxing, and I can feel just a little bit of the Disney spirit penetrating the hard shell I have around my heart. Not too much, you understand - just a little. But because this is so nice, I'm not really caring at the moment. I'll go back to being a hard-ass in the morning.

We go back to our rooms and order room service for dinner. We ended up ordering one appetizer and two entrees to split between the four of us. Needless to say with my limited stomach capacity and the girls' already semi-full tummies of cookies, there was a lot of food left over. Mostly french fries, but who cares. We're on vacation!

Then turn-down service comes. Oooh. I like turn-down service. Chocolate! And along with the turn-down of the bed comes this piece of paper that tells you the various activities going on in the hotel the next day that don't have to do with the theme parks at all. Oh look at this! A Build-a-Bear workshop for the kids! Sounds fun! So, we sign the girls up. The Husband is going to have to take them to it because it interferes with my spa stuff. He's a little bit apprehensive about this - it's a mommy thing to him - but agrees to go instead.

The next morning, after a nice breakfast at the club (Raisin Bran with two Splenda and a dash of milk for me - not a perfect breakfast, but one that at least ensures that I get some fiber that's been missing in my diet), we head to Downtown Disney (DD) where the Build-a-Bear workshop will be. I leave before they go in, and head to my spa treatments. After the workshop, the three of them will head onto Disneyland. We'll meet up by phone later on. Good plan! I get to avoid Disneyland. Yay!

So, after a couple of hours of spa treatments, a trip back to the club for the little sandwiches and more water, a quick trip to Sephora in DD and a nap (spa treatments and eating tire you out, don't you know?), The Husband and I decide that we'll have an early dinner at Naples Pizza in DD. Awesome. Cheese and pepperoni for me!

At dinner, The Husband surprises me with my own set of - come on, you can guess what it is, I think - Mouse Ears. With my name embroidered on the back. :::sigh::: Fucking Disneyland. Mouse Ears. That's almost as bad as going into Disneyland, ya know? At least he had the sensibility to get me the ones that are decorated like a pirate with a fake golden earring through the left ear. 'Cause it can't be through the right ear - that would make you a faggot and Disneyland can't be associated with those kind of people, now can they? (A bundle of twigs? How can a person be a bundle of twigs? I never understood that slur as a child.)

Being the good sport that I am (Wouldn't you be after spa treatments, a makeup shopping trip and a nap? Plus good pizza?) I put the ears on. This leads into the most perfect setup I've ever seen dished out on me in my life.

"Well, now that you're a proper pirate mouse, you have to go on Pirates of the Carribean. You can't be a pirate mouse if you haven't gone on Pirates."

Damn. He got me but good. And in front of the children. :::sigh::: Fine. I'll go. But only on Pirates. Take me ANYWHERE near It's A Small World and I will spontaneously combust. I promise. It won't be pretty.

I feel like I am being led to my doom as we approach the park. Even at 5:30 p.m., people are still streaming into the place. It's unreal. How can they stand being in such a crush of humanity? We get inside, and start making our way to Main Street. Along the way, we stop and the girls and I get our pictures taken with Cruella DeVille. No Goofy or Mickey or Minnie for me, please - I refuse to sell my soul to Disney completely. Just the most slatternly evil character Disney has ever created. The only one that would have been better is Malificent, and I don't think they "do" that character at the park. Hopefully I'm wrong, because she is just so cool.

We journey into the French Quarter and are able to quickly make our way through the line of Pirates. But OMG, people. The sheer amount of STROLLERS in this park is enough to make you vomit. At least one third of the people in this park are being rolled around in strollers. This I think, more than anything else, is really why I have never, ever wanted to set foot in Disneyland. Why on earth to people think that it is a Very Good Thing to bring children under the age of reasonability (i.e. between 5 and 6) to a theme park? Why? You know that they are going to have a meltdown because they're tired/hungry/cranky/hot at least once in the day, and you are going to be made miserable because of that. You are going to make people around you miserable. Why would anyone want to do this to themselves?

If anyone thinks that I'm anti-small children in public places, think again. It's just that I remember acutely the mortification I felt every time my children had a meltdown in public at that age. I couldn't get them out of places fast enough. It's not the child's fault (most of the time, unless they're being little pricks, which children can be if they are allowed to get away with it) that they're melting down. They're being put in a situation (strange place, too much stimulation, no place familiar to nap, ginormous scary rodents to take your picture with) where they are guaranteed to blow up. It's like bringing a ticking time bomb into a park. And they will never remember the experience!

So people. For the love of humanity. Wait to bring your children to a theme park when they can enjoy it and so that you can actually enjoy it with them as well. It makes it so much more fun when they can truly appreciate what's going on. Your toddler honestly does not care that he/she is at Disneyland. Plus, when they're older, they can ride all the rides and not feel left out when brother or sister can go but *I* can't! Which prevents meltdowns as well.

After Pirates, we hop on the train that goes around the park so that I can at see the rest of the place before we high-tail it out of there in time to make it back for milk, cookies and storytime again. (Hey, we were given this perk. We're going to beat it until it falls down dead!) So aside from Pirates and the train, I figure that I truly haven't been "contaminated" by Disney. Yeah, I set foot in the place. But I was only there for an hour or so and that just doesn't count, now does it?

This night, we attempted to watch the fireworks show on the balcony, but it was abruptly cut short because of the way the wind was keeping the smoke in the wrong place. They said that if it blew over the freeway it had a bad habit of causing accidents so they stop before it reaches that point.

We stopped at the concierge desk just outside the club to try and plan out the next day at California Adventure. While there, we were let in on a little known secret of how to get into the park early and be able to have a private ride (no more than 15 people) on Soarin' Over California before anybody else is allowed in the park. Sweeeeet!

The next morning, we get to the secret meeting place early, and mark our territory and wait until the Disney cast member comes to collect us. We were joined only by another couple, so we entertained ourselves with some good chit-chat and watched all the other sheeple who weren't privvy to the secret get frustrated because California Adventure wasn't open yet. (Disneyland opens much earlier than California Adventure and opens even earlier for guests of the hotel. People seemed to think that that meant that California Adventure opened at the same time as well. It doesn't. Read your handouts from turndown service, people! Sheesh!) Eventually our cast member came and collected us and we were escorted into the park. Down the path and through the hangar doors we went, and we were in Soarin' Over California.

People, this ride is the BOMB. Very, very cool. It really does feel like you're in a glider going over these places. They did an excellent job on this. And we got the best seats! Whooo!

The rest of the day was just as good. We walked and walked and walked and walked. Used the fast-pass system like pros and managed to never wait in line for a ride longer than 10-15 minutes. I went on every ride that I wanted - including the big roller coaster. I did stay away from the very jerky rides, however. I wasn't up to testing my insides that much. We also went to the Aladdin stage show that they put on, and it was really, really good. The genie had updated lines (He bagged on Tom Cruise's lunacy - i.e. couch jumping, etc - at least two or three times for example) and was just as manic as Robin Williams was with the part.

Food wise, let's just say that protein didn't pass my lips very often. There was the corn dog, but I could barely eat the dog because it was way too spicy. Only get the hot link corn dog if you like searing your mouth with pepper. Go with the regular dog otherwise. The churros at the park were glorious. I'd take a small bite, let it melt going down, the girls would gobble up about half of the rest, I'd take a bite, and the girls would eat the rest of it. I had a bit of a hard time with the water because there is no such thing as a cup of ice in the park. So we kept buying the bottled water and I would drink until it got too warm for me even though it was still cold, and the girls or The Husband would finish it off.

Throughout the day, The Husband kept asking me if I needed to go back and take a nap. But I was feeling so good, I really didn't need one. However, by the time 4:30 rolled around, we were all pretty tired, so we decided to head back to the room for a quick nap before going back into California Adventure for our free dinner. When my head hit the pillow, the exhaustion just hit me like a ton of bricks and I was out like a light.

The Husband woke me up at 6 to get ready for dinner and I was like a walking dead man. As we made our way to the restauraunt, he kept looking at me and making sure that I was up to this. Hellfire, man! I need dinner! Foood! Feeeeeed meeeeee!

While we were waiting for dinner, we made the mistake of wandering over to one of the gift shops that are everywhere in these parks. In that shop they had a selection of the Disney Trading Pins as well as some of their starter pin sets. I don't know what came over me, but for some reason I decided that I Needed To Do This. *I* needed to trade pins with the hapless cast members that can't say no when I want one of their pins. All I can say is that Mickey Mouse stole my soul by breaking my vow and setting foot into Disneyland, and this was the result of my bringing this curse upon myself: Trading Pins. :::shudder:::

Unfortunately, this started a chain reaction with the girls wanting their own pin lanyards just like mommy and The Husband wanting to buy pins for his ladies. By the time we walked out of there, I had my own pin lanyard with it's four stock pins, plus about 7 other pins that The Husband had gotten for me. The girls had comparable ones as well. I don't even want to know how much this cost because it would probably make me throw up.

At dinner, The Husband and I should have just ordered one meal for the both of us, especially since we ordered the same thing - the fish and chips. It was the only thing that could have remotely been good for me in any way shape or form, and I only managed to eat one piece of fish and maybe two or three french fries. I also had a few spoonfulls of the chicken soup (way too salty) they brought for appetizer and two small spoonfulls of the peach cobbler (way too tasty for my good health) for dessert.

In the middle of eating, they announced that the Princesses were making their appearances for photos and autographs, and all the little girls went crazy. One by one they made their way around the room, stopping at all the tables, smiling their fake little Disney smiles and posing with those stupid little jazz hands that they do. Very sweet and cute for the girls, but OMG I just wanted it to end. Snow White, Belle, Jasmine, Mulan and Ariel all made appearances. I ended up taking a picture of The Husband with Belle just so that we can send it to his older brother. Apparently when Beauty and the Beast came out on tape the two of them watched it with their sister's kids and my brother-in-law whispered to The Husband and that he would "like one of those" referring to Belle. So, hah! Take that, older brother! Heee!

By the time everything was finished at the restaurant, it was getting close to storytime. As exhausted as I was, there was no way I could run back to the hotel, so I took all the stuff we had with us and told The Husband and the girls to make a dash for it, and that I would catch up with them. They apparently made it *just* in time and I managed to make it about halfway through. We stayed again for the fireworks, and this time we got to see the whole show. It was very good. The things they can do with fireworks nowadays is just amazing.

We get back to the room, and the girls are bouncing off the walls with energy still. I am so beat it's not even funny. The Husband makes an off-hand comment about going back into Disneyland and the girls JUMP all over it. He gives me the "Uh-oh!" look, but he did it to himself. Sorry, honey! So off they trudge again into the park. It's about 10:30 at night.

At approximately 1 in the morning, the three make it back to our room. The girls are decked out in Princess costumes - Thing One has chosen Aurora's pink dress (not the blue one!) and Thing Two is in Belle's yellow ballgown. Well, guess you guys have picked out your Halloween costumes, right? The Husband gives me a sheepish look and mumbles something about the Satanic music playing and about how he just wanted to make things special for them. All I can do is smile. This is further proof that Mickey Mouse has stolen my soul, Internet.

We all collapse into the sleep of the dead and don't wake up until about 9 the next morning. As we collect ourselves and our now greatly multiplied belongings (where did all this crap come from?) The Husband and I casually talk about the experience and how much we really liked it. We even started talking about coming back next year and doing it again. (Again, my soul is gone! Lost forever in the Disney abyss! :::sob:::)

The trip home only took two and a half hours including a stop at In-N-Out (one cheeseburger with no bun, please!). I was very relieved because if it had been any longer I think I would have had a conniption fit in the middle of gridlock on HWY 5. Now that I was finally out of the fiendish grip of Disney-mania, I felt my head clear. The fog (smog?) surrounding me lifted, and I no longer felt contaminated by the curse of Mickey and that all would be right in the world again. I was saved, and never again would I risk my soul for that little rodent again.

On Monday and back at work, I'm busily typing away when my phone rings. I give my standard hello and who praytell is on the other end of the line? None other than The Husband's Crew Chief, doing his Mickey Mouse imitation.

I hung up on him.