Dan Brooks

1/29/99

[Lights down. Lights up.]

So I wanted to take the kids to Disneyland, on account of they made that movie where the scientists find a dinosaur in the Bahamas or something and they fly him back to New York City, and then he goes to college and plays the piano. I mean Disney made that movie, not the kids. Frankly, the kids don’t make shit, except my wife and me crazy. [Laughs uproariously.] I tell that one a lot. Anyway, the kids loved this dinosaur movie and now all they can talk about is Disney – Disney this, Disney that – so I figured I’d take ’em there over their spring break, like a surprise or something. It’d be fun for the wife and me, too. I guess they got this place there now where you can go while your kids are having fun. It’s called like "Maturity Forest" or "Parents Island" or something. So I mention this to my wife, Midge, only she’s not listening because she’s reading "The Thirty Minute Decorator." I like that Thirty Minute Decorator. To me, thirty minutes sounds about right. You spend forty-five minutes on decorating, in my opinion, you’re gettin’ a little fruity. So anyway, she’s reading this decoratin’ book and she looks pretty uh...you know…engrossed. Midge came up with that word, "engrossed." It means you been drinkin’ that Chi-Chi’s Margarita Mix and maybe eating Sominex all afternoon and you don’t want to be disturbed. When Midge is engrossed I generally make such decisions on my own, so I went ahead and called the travel agency and they set things up, and the next thing I knew it was March and we were at Disneyland.

It turned out I was right about the Parents Island thing, only what they call it is "Coconut Cove." I thought that was pretty funny, because before I met Midge I used to go to a place called Coconut Cove, only it wasn’t at Disneyland and they definitely didn’t let kids in there, either. See, that was a joke. Like I was comparing this place at Disneyland that’s all ritzy and nice to this nudie bar I used to go to when I was in the service. I’m good at comin’ up with jokes like that. I took a class and everything, from this guy who used to be a comedian but now he teaches adult ed. classes at night at the high school, and now I can think of jokes like that. Cost me two hundred fifty bucks.

Anyway, Midge didn’t really laugh at that, on account of she was too busy talking with the guy at the front desk about who takes care of our kids while we’re in Coconut Cove. I hadn’t even thought of that, to tell you the truth. I assumed they’d sort of run around free and ride the roller coasters and stuff. I mean, it’s Disneyland, you know? What could happen? But apparently Midge saw this "48 Hours" about these gangs of Puerto Ricans who roam around Disneyland, and when they find your kid they get him hooked on drugs and while he’s all doped up they cover him with fur from the stuffed animal stand and then they sell him to the zoo as a monkey. I guess they get like 1200 dollars per kid, and the kid can’t really identify who the Puerto Ricans were because usually after about two days in the zoo he gets his face eaten off by a baboon. So it’s a real racket. Anyway, when Midge told the desk guy about this, he said "Don’t worry. One of our hospitality specialists will escort your children at all times."

See, at Disneyland they’ve got these fake names for everything. Like the "imagination engineer" is the guy who pulls the lever to stop Splash Mountain in case somebody gets sucked into the gears. Or the "safety specialist" is the guy who gets to beat the shit out of those Puerto Rican guys if they ever catch ’em. So it turns out the hospitality specialists are the people who wear the Mickey Mouse suits. Now, I’m not stupid. I know that most of these guys in the suits are just high school kids makin’ six fifty an hour, and most of them could care less about what happens to my kid. Plus, you never know who else they hire to do this. I mean it could be anybody off the street, like a pervert or something. I’m not going to sit in the Coconut Cove and drink a Mai Tai while some sicko in a Goofy suit fucks my kid up the ass. I even went right over to the front desk guy and said that. I said, "I’m not going to sit here in Coconut Cove while some sicko in a Goofy suit fucks my kid up the ass!"

Anyway, I guess I said that pretty loud, and a lot of people in Coconut Cove turned around and looked at me. Then the front desk guy said I was going to have to leave. Probably because I didn’t use their secret Disneyland code language. Like maybe they call "fucking your kid up the ass" "advanced hospitality manuevers." I said that right out loud, too. Then I said maybe the desk guy was giving a lot of the bellboys advanced hospitality manuevers. That’s about when the safety specialist got there, and we had to leave.

[Stop. Break character.]

Two: A female acquaintance of mine once asked me why I so vehemently oppose Valentine’s Day. I told her that when I was growing up my parents initially taught me to believe in three mythological beings: Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and human love. She laughed and went home. She has a boyfriend, and his name is Steve.

[Blackout.]