I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today
By popular acclaim amongst the Bucketeers, I am not allowed to recount during my re-cap of yesterday's trip to Disneyland that I neglected to put on sunscreen and got sunburned. So I'm not going to say that. Whether or not that happened will have to remain a total mystery. Most-easily-solved and least-interest mystery ever perhaps, but still a mystery.

In lieu of actually saying that, I will say that I neglected to ______ which resulted in ______. Feel free to fill in the blanks as you wish.

I've been to Disneyland a lot. A lot. A lot. A lot. Many, many times. A lot. Seriously. A lot. But every time I go, I learn something new. This trip was no exception. I will share.

1) Man-purses. Apparently they are really, really in. I would really like to blame their shocking ubiquity at Disneyland yesterday on visiting poncey Euros, but Euros don't go to Disneyland. They go to Disney World. I don't know if they think they're getting a better exchange rate in Fla or what it is exactly about that toxic swampy nest of Satan's armpit hair that entices them, but it seems to work. Disneyland is, by and large, peopled with my fellow SoCalians. The whole "metrosexual" movement has, alas, seemed to trickle down to the masses amongst my people with tragic, yet handily portable results. Call it a "shoulder bag" if you want, dude, but I know a man-purse when I see one. Stopping every so often to spritz yourself with combination moisturizer/SPF 25 sunblock isn't helping, either. Especially if it smells like lilacs.

2) Cell-phone cameras. Times were that picture-taking involved specific moments, posing in front of impressive backdrops or capturing the rare candid instance for the sake of memory. Now that there is no such things as expensive, limited film AND you don't have to carry around a whole separate 4 oz. apparatus to take pictures, it has now become OK to stop wherever the fuck anyone wants to and snap a picture. While walking in crowded theme-park throughways, for example, or in line for rides or in public restrooms, whatever. The technology exists, so what the hell, let's just poke it until it stops moving. It might be OK if your camera-phone didn't take slightly longer than a 19th century daguerreotype to capture an image. Yes, those were my kids behind you crying because they couldn't advance in the line for the Buzz Lightyear AstroBlasters ride. Fuckers.

3) There is such a thing as bad cleavage. Disneyland in the spring and summer is a veritable cornucopia of bosoms on partial display. It's a wonderland of v-necks and tank-tops framing the easily ogle-able parts of women of every fabulous shape and size. I don't want to get into too much detail as to what constitutes bad cleavage, but suffice it to say, some of you are trying too hard. If it doesn't happen naturally, please, I beg you, be OK with that. Let it go. I promise to find some other part of your body by which I might reduce you to the sum of your biological parts and thus devalue you as a human being. Have some faith in me.

4) Matching clothes are never a good idea. I can kind of understand if it's a large group or maybe you have small kids you want to be able to find easily in a crowd. But young couples or families of adults... I don't want to punch anyone in the face, so don't put it out there. It's bad enough that the Disneybot employees all have to coordinate (OR DIE!). By doing it voluntarily, you mock their suffering. It would be like visiting a slaughterhouse wearing a shirt made entirely of congealed blood. It's just bad taste.

As for how my middle child's fifth birthday went, all I can say is any birthday that ends with a shirt completely ruined by chocolate can't have been a bad one.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 8.8


Pops



Last thing: I know the Movies I Have No Intention of Seeing series has been on something of a hiatus, but honestly, I haven't been seeing enough advertising hype for anything for me to form a decent half-assed opinion worth writing down. Please bear with me. I will be gone again next Friday (long story), so no MIHNIoS then either, but after THAT, I can promise you Mission: Impossible III. Think of it: Tom Cruise. Philip Seymour Hoffman. Korvath Ganymede MacLeish Horringon III. The showdown, at last. Three men enter, one doesn't see the other two's movie. Mark your calendars.
- posted by Pops @ 8:58 AM