Just a quick note on the subject because a lot of you have been asking about it since my entry a couple of weeks ago. But after this I'll never bring it up again.
My friend Nina and my friend Ted, adults whom I greatly respect, have both related to me that they love (love) Disneyland. Ted went so far as to say he'd live there if he could.
I don't get it.
Other adults I know take the party line that "It's not for you, it's for your kids." Yes, my kids liked it. They're kids, they like everything except taking naps and wearing clothes. They would have been just as happy to see me fall down the stairs at our house as they were at Disneyland. So, for that matter, would I. And it would have been a hell of a lot cheaper, even with medical costs what they are.
As it turns out, it probably would have been less painful, too. I've been in walking, waking agony ever since the first day there. We weren't farsighted enough to take a stroller along with us. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference, anyway. I'm told that kids will ride in them for about 10 seconds (or about halfway down Main Street USA), at which point they will demand to walk or have you carry them anyway. (And as the old saying goes, a crying baby is a majority of one.)
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So I'm carrying an irregularly distributed 35 lb. load of kid around my shoulders for an accumulated 5 hours per day for three days. I'm telling you my spine was compressed beyond recognition. If the Spanish Inquisition had really wanted to coerce a tortured confession out of a heretic, they should have used my son Baxter to mash his vertebrae together instead of using a rack to stretch him. I went to Disneyland as an already short 5'7" man and came back looking like one of the dwarfs (I'll give you one guess which one of the seven I'd be).
But enough about me and my physical problems, let's talk about me and my new financial problems after paying for the trip.
Let me first state that I'm one of those free-market capitalists who believe the invisible hand of the market will always wind up setting prices at a level which will benefit society. Apparently, neither Adam Smith nor I could have ever foreseen that the Walt Disney Corporation could somehow get an exemption from this.
Using kids to get to their parents' money is nothing new, I suppose. (I'm sure my mom wouldn't have, of her own volition, bought poisonous crap like Cap'n Crunch when I was a boy had I not insisted on it after seeing those irresistible animated commercials during the Saturday morning cartoon block.)
But it's the spectacular level to which Disney has taken that concept that unsettles me. I don't need to catalogue the list of extortions...any adult who's been there can recall with shocking clarity the number of times they had to make return trips to the ATM. Everything. EV-ERY-THING there in Captiveland costs four to five times what it would anywhere else.
Ironically, the only thing that I actually would have gladly paid quadruple the market price for (a huge tumbler of scotch) they refuse to sell in the park. My second and third day might have been completely different if they did.
My friend Nina and my friend Ted, adults whom I greatly respect, have both related to me that they love (love) Disneyland. Ted went so far as to say he'd live there if he could.
I don't get it.
Other adults I know take the party line that "It's not for you, it's for your kids." Yes, my kids liked it. They're kids, they like everything except taking naps and wearing clothes. They would have been just as happy to see me fall down the stairs at our house as they were at Disneyland. So, for that matter, would I. And it would have been a hell of a lot cheaper, even with medical costs what they are.
As it turns out, it probably would have been less painful, too. I've been in walking, waking agony ever since the first day there. We weren't farsighted enough to take a stroller along with us. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference, anyway. I'm told that kids will ride in them for about 10 seconds (or about halfway down Main Street USA), at which point they will demand to walk or have you carry them anyway. (And as the old saying goes, a crying baby is a majority of one.)
.JPG)
So I'm carrying an irregularly distributed 35 lb. load of kid around my shoulders for an accumulated 5 hours per day for three days. I'm telling you my spine was compressed beyond recognition. If the Spanish Inquisition had really wanted to coerce a tortured confession out of a heretic, they should have used my son Baxter to mash his vertebrae together instead of using a rack to stretch him. I went to Disneyland as an already short 5'7" man and came back looking like one of the dwarfs (I'll give you one guess which one of the seven I'd be).But enough about me and my physical problems, let's talk about me and my new financial problems after paying for the trip.
Let me first state that I'm one of those free-market capitalists who believe the invisible hand of the market will always wind up setting prices at a level which will benefit society. Apparently, neither Adam Smith nor I could have ever foreseen that the Walt Disney Corporation could somehow get an exemption from this.
Using kids to get to their parents' money is nothing new, I suppose. (I'm sure my mom wouldn't have, of her own volition, bought poisonous crap like Cap'n Crunch when I was a boy had I not insisted on it after seeing those irresistible animated commercials during the Saturday morning cartoon block.)
But it's the spectacular level to which Disney has taken that concept that unsettles me. I don't need to catalogue the list of extortions...any adult who's been there can recall with shocking clarity the number of times they had to make return trips to the ATM. Everything. EV-ERY-THING there in Captiveland costs four to five times what it would anywhere else.
Ironically, the only thing that I actually would have gladly paid quadruple the market price for (a huge tumbler of scotch) they refuse to sell in the park. My second and third day might have been completely different if they did.
I got a call from my friend Jesse the second day we were at the park. He asked me how things were going. I told him. He replied, "Somebody has to tell the truth about that place, Ken." And so this is my version of the "truth about 'that place.'"
And yet, when I look at the pictures of my kids there, I know I'll be back in a couple of years. 
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