by Mark Smiley

A father in modern secular America has relatively few sacred duties, but there is one task he must perform. That obligation is taking his family on a hajj to one of the twin Meccas of material consumption, Disneyland and Disneyworld, before his children reach adolescence. Cost can be no impediment as it is your familial duty.

Eleanore, my almost three-year-old highly precocious child, had talked of little else since my wife, Gwen and I had tentatively broached the subject with her. She has seen every full-length Disney movie from the 1937 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” to the latest mega hit “Frozen,” with the latter viewed in whole or in part almost one hundred times. She is a card carrying member of the Mickey Mouse Club and has our television permanently set to the Disney Junior Channel. Any attempt to change the channel results in a caterwauling that curdles the blood of any nearby adult.

No, the only question was Disneyland or Disneyworld. After much deep thought and meditation Disneyland was chosen as we had lived for a time in the Inland Empire west of Los Angeles and had friends in the area.

Sunscreen. Check. Boarding passes. Check. Manual on how to take a toddler to Disneyland. Doesn’t exist.

I pre-purchased tickets to Disneyland. I packed little toys to surprise her with throughout the trip as to not spend a small fortune on them inside the park. I even purchased a photo package that allows for a download of all photos taken at the park by cast members.

We landed in Ontario, California. Having lived there for three years, we knew that early May would be a lovely time to visit. The temperatures would be in the 70s, the winds would be mild, and there would be fewer fellow sojourners circling the Kaaba of Disneyland, better known as Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. We got one of these right. At the time we landed, it was 98 degrees with the Santa Ana winds howling at 55 miles per hour. This was weather more befitting of the an-Nafud desert than Southern California. Moreover, there were fires in Rancho Cucamonga so the winds were blowing the smoke across the inland valley. The blowing dirt caused the sky to turn an ominous blood red. We felt we were less entering the Magic Kingdom and more descending into the rings of Dante’s Inferno.

We had reservations at Goofy’s Kitchen at the Disneyland Hotel on our first evening. The restaurant features character dining with characters such as Goofy, Pluto, Minnie Mouse, Chip and Dale, etc. Leading up to this dinner, my wife and I prepared our daughter to meet all the wonderful Disney characters in larger than life costumes. The food was expensive and just o.k., but you were really paying for the entertainment and not the cuisine.

As Goofy and Pluto approached our table to meet and greet Eleanore, she began to scream. “Help Mommy! The monsters from under my bed are here!! Please lock and load, Daddy. Quick.” I am not sure where she got the “lock and load” part but she was clearly terrified and wanted her parents to act decisively, if not murderously. We hurriedly left the restaurant with child in tow and escaped into the night with Eleanore slightly miffed that her parents had not permanently taken care of the “bed monsters” problem when the opportunity had presented itself.

The next day we prepared for our foray into the park. As the designated parental mule, Gwen loaded me up. First was the backpack with sunscreen, extra set of clothes for Eleanore, baby wipes, etc. Next came the cooler with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and iced downed water bottles. Finally, a foldable stroller and miscellaneous and sundry items were piled upon my shoulders until I reminded my wife of the allegory about the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Fully loaded down I began lugubriously marching toward the bus stop with Eleanore and my wife strongly urging that I pick up the pace. We proceeded to go curbside and wait for the bus. It was so crowded, that there wasn’t room for us on that bus so we had to wait 30 minutes for the next one. Luckily, I purchased bus tickets from the front desk and we would have an easy boarding process. Wrong. As that bus pulled up, I searched for the tickets I had purchased over one hour ago and couldn’t find them. I unloaded all of my burdens and ran up to the 9th floor of our hotel and searched the room to no avail. A call from my wife to my mobile phone made me realize that I had run out of time. We now had to drive to make it on time for the opening of the gates at the park. As I entered the car my wife ominously held one finger and from the passenger seat intoned: “Strike One.”

As the day clipped along, things appeared to be going well even as the temperature climbed to three figures. As anticipated the lines were less than other times of the year and Eleanore appeared to be having a wonderful time. A series of Disney characters were coming down the street. I decided that we had to get Eleanore over her strong phobia about costumed Disney characters. Carrying my daughter in my arms I walked directly up to a large and almost ferocious looking Pluto who she quickly made friends with. I did feel sorry for the poor teenager working for a little more than minimum wage inside a rubber costume in which the temperature can climb to over 120 degrees. The employees must put this modern Iron Maiden on eight times per day. They are in costume 30 minutes of every working hour. I had to wonder myself whether Dick Cheney and the CIA might have considered this routine as a possible enhanced interrogation technique in lieu of the more prosaic waterboarding.

We visited numerous fun exhibits and rides including Dumbo the Flying Elephant over the next couple of hours and then decided to take a break resting under a shaded tree with Eleanore falling asleep in the stroller. I thought this would be the perfect time to indulge my inner adolescent and skip over to Space Mountain and ride one of my favorite roller coasters. I told my wife I had to accomplish an unspecified important task but would be back momentarily. Unfortunately, numerous other dads apparently had a similar idea and I waited over 40 minutes to get on the ride. I waited, rode the ride, looked at the picture of myself screaming on the ride, and returned to New Orleans Square to reunite with my family. As I walked over with a smile from ear to ear, I began to wonder what would happen if they weren’t still there. The smile turned into a concentrated look and my walk became more brisk. As I arrived at the spot where I left my family, I came across a beautiful woman with her child. The only trouble is, it wasn’t my family.

I literally didn’t know what to do. I reached in my pocket for my cell phone to try to call Gwen only to realize I had left my cell in the backpack. In a panic I found a Disney employee who was kind enough to lend me his cell phone. I then remembered that I hadn’t committed Gwen’s cell phone number to memory and just pushed a speed dial letter when I wanted to call her. I hiked over to the human lost and found section of the park. There was a room for children who had lost their parents or other adult supervision and a room for parents, et al, looking for their kids. There was, however, no place for a lost adult like myself. I stumbled back into the park in a daze. In a fit of desperation I headed over to Tomorrowland where we had planned to visit at some point and in a minor miracle located them awaiting the Astro Orbitor ride. I was overjoyed. Gwen’s words of greeting were simply: “Strike Two.”

After finishing an otherwise enjoyable trip around Tomorrowland including riding the popular Autopia car ride, it is almost time to leave. But, we decided to visit Downtown Disney, just outside the main gate before heading into the parking lot. As we passed by the extraordinary Lego Store, my wife insisted I pose for a picture with the enormous “Beauty and the Beast” Lego display just outside the store. Exhausted by this time I put my arm to rest on the Beast over the short guard rail undoubtedly put there to prevent exhausted dads from leaning on the artwork. Too tired to care I leaned in with my full weight and found out to my horror that it was a genuine Lego sculpture that had not been glued together. As a part of the Beast’s arm began to crumble the Smiley family hot-footed it toward the parking garage.

We hit the exit at full stride, afraid to look back to see whether Lego personnel were trying to track down the man who had trashed the Beast sculpture. Being an ever prudent dad I had written down where we had parked — “Donald 5.” But thousands of cars had come after us and Donald 5 now encompassed an enormous field of automobiles. The non-descript Japanese white four-door rental car looked like thousands of other automobiles. The rental cars beeper on the key chain worked only if you where within a dozen feet of the automobile. Leaving mother and child in the middle of the garage, I walked up and down the endless rows and rows of cars in Donald 5 relentlessly pushing on the key chain until after 30 minutes I finally heard a blessed “Beep, Beep.”

As we left Disneyland and hit a traffic filled Los Angeles area streets my wife put everything in perspective. “Look Mark, Eleanore is not quite three-years-old. Humans have no permanent memories of events much before their fourth birthday. Eleanore will never remember how you totally flummoxed up her first trip to Disneyland. Of course I might. Just saying — Strike Three.” She then commenced the official and dreaded “silent treatment.’’

As I was feeling at the lowest level of the entire trip, Eleanore broke the long conjugal silence declaring “I had a great time, Daddy” and gave me a big toddler smile. It was now all worth it. No matter what the ups and downs are, there is nothing like taking your child to Disneyland.