Up Your Ass, Mickey Mouse (Part 3)

Okay, so when we last left our vacation epic, we had just finished three less-than magical days at Disneyland. But we were far from done, kids. We still had two more days in California before we had to pack up, and head back to the relative sanity of Colorado.

Let's resume, shall we?

Wednesday, July 23rd- Universal Studios, Los Angeles

We were staying in Anaheim, which is around 30 miles from Los Angeles, and our next stop, Universal Studios. We decided to sleep in a bit after three full days at Disney, and leave the hotel at 10:00, to avoid the rush hour jam on Interstate Five, or just "The 5".

We were so wrong about so many things this week, why the hell should we stop now? It took us 90 minutes to drive those 30 goddamn miles. The closer we got to L.A., the worse the traffic got. I discovered later that there are several better ways to get there than taking The 5, but that's what Mapquest told me to do. And there are two things I don't disobey- Mapquest, and my Magic 8-Ball.

There was no wreck. There was no bad weather. There was no construction. That's the way traffic is all the time in California. Now I know why people shoot at each other on the highways out there. They're bored. They need something to do while they're waiting to move.

While we were waiting in the jam, I made a mental list of the things that I would rather do than live in Los Angeles, or anywhere in California.

Here is a sampling from my list:

I would rather watch a two week continuous reel of "St. Elmo's Fire" than live in California.

I would rather make sweet love to Rosie O'Donnell, and have her sing show tunes at the same time.

I would rather dip my junk in a tank of piranhas that haven't eaten in a month.

I would rather get a lap dance from Hillary Clinton.

Anyway, we pulled in to Universal around 11:30, and spent the day. We had no intention of coming back through L.A. during rush hour, so we knew we'd be there until around 7:00. We had until 11:00 the next morning to check out of the hotel, so we thought maybe we could get back in 16 hours if we caught a break with the traffic.

I don't know if it was because we had a Disneyland hangover, but Universal wasn't all that great.

The first thing we did was take the studio tour, which had it's moments. You realize that they can do some magical stuff with film, making something look big and spectacular when the real thing is a little piece of shit. The coolest thing was the boat that they used in the newest version of King Kong. The whole thing was about three feet tall, and they made it look life-sized in the movie.

That took about an hour, and then we explored the rest of the park. They had a new Simpsons ride, so we waited for 45 minutes to go on that. Right when we got to the front, guess what? The bastard broke down. Un-freakin'-believable. Story of our week.

So we waited another 15 minutes for them to fix it, and finally got on. The Simpsons ride is another innovation that we saw a lot at Disneyland. You get in a roller coaster seat, they put you in front of a big screen, and they move you around, blowing wind in your face, while the images on the screen give you the feeling that you're actually on a coaster.

Call me old fashioned, but if I'm on a roller coaster, I'd rather move, and have the stuff around me stay still, instead of the other way around. I'm sure they save a lot of money and space designing it the new way, but it's not the same.

The only other thing there really worth mentioning is the Jurassic Park ride, which was the best thing that happened all day. It's a water ride, where you get on a boat that takes you around, and big dinosaurs come out of nowhere and scare you. Then at the end, you go down a steep 80 foot ramp, and get soaked by the splash. Great ride.

Now, if you think there was any way we were going to get our four year old daughter on that sonofabitch, you apparently haven't read part II of my saga. So the boys and Annie went first, and The Girl and I waited at the end for them to finish. We had a great time waiting, because you could stand near the bottom of the big ramp in an area where the boat splash would come over the rails. The Girl loves water, so I stood there with her and we were both drenched by the time the others came out. I had a case of the Swamp Ass for the rest of the day, but it was worth it.

Other than that, there was nothing much memorable about Universal, except maybe the half hour we watched a live version of Fear Factor. That was okay, except when the contestants would have to eat goat scrotum, or drink beetle puree, or some other nasty shit. I never understood why that was necessary in the original show- it always made me turn the channel. Well, that and Joe Rogan. What a boner that guy was.

Anyway, we left Universal at 7:00, and by some miracle made it back 30 miles to the hotel in an hour. After taking the kids swimming in the frigid pool, and then relocating a certain organ that had gone elsewhere because the water was so goddamn cold, we went to bed and got ready to check out of Anaheim and head on down the coast to San Diego, where we had a date with Shamu the Whale.

Thursday, July 24th- Somewhere north of San Diego, California

We packed up and left Anaheim at around 9:00, and started on the 100 mile trip to San Diego. We planned to spend from around 11 until 7 at Sea World, and then make it to the hotel in time for dinner at the beach and the inevitable swimming pool visit.

We thought this was a great plan.

Well, it just wouldn't have been right if that part of our trip didn't somehow get fucked up. About halfway there, we saw a sign on the highway that there had been an accident, and to expect some delays. We didn't know at the time what kind of delay we were looking at.

We got near San Clemente, and traffic came to a dead halt. I'm talking about sitting there for 20 minutes, and not moving an inch. We turned on the radio to see if we could find out what was going on.

It turned out that just to screw up our day, some selfish bastard in a tanker truck had rolled his vehicle, and splattered his sorry ass all over the highway. I guess there were body parts everywhere, because they had all five lanes shut down. And there's only one way to get to San Diego- U.S. Highway 15.

So we started to do damage control in our van, and tried to figure out what we were going to do. The most urgent thing was to find a way off the highway, so we could whiz and then evaluate our situation. It took another half hour to move a half mile, but we finally exited in San Clemente and found a gas station.

After filling up our tank (at $4.69 per gallon, by the way-I threw up a little in the back of my mouth) we spotted a brown sign that said, "San Clemente Beach". So after some discussion, we decided that we would spend a couple of hours at the beach. Certainly they would have scraped the Rubber Duck off the road by then (if you get that reference, you're old), traffic would be flowing again, and we could still get in a good six hours at Sea World.

We pulled into the parking lot at the beach feeling very proud of our improvisational skills. California was not going to kick our ass. Not any more.

We had a friggin' ball at the beach, especially yours truly. The older kids had been to the ocean once, but they were really small, and didn't remember much about it. And the little ones, including The Girl, had never been at all.

The day was beautiful- not real hot, and the water was amazingly pretty warm. I had heard that swimming at the beach in California wasn't that great, because the ocean was always cold. Not in this case. Maybe things were turning around for us...

My favorite thing was waiting for a big wave to come in, and then running and jumping into it, and letting it knock me back. I'm fascinated by how powerful the ocean is. I've only been there a handful of times in my entire life, so this was still new enough for me to act like a kid.

It was maybe the best two hours of the whole vacation. We played Nerf football in the waves, the little ones dug holes in the sand- it was brilliant. There was the one incident, when I was laying on the beach, and the locals gathered around me, and tried to push me back into the sea. "Make sure his blowhole isn't clogged", they said. But other than that...

Until...

I'm not quite sure why, but The Girl only poops about once a week. But when she goes, it's massive. Adult rhinos have nothing on this little girl. She must lose half her body weight when she finally drops anchor. And when she needs to go, it's right now.

Well, she was having so much fun, she forgot to tell us she needed to do the stinky. So next thing you know, she came running up, and showed us the big ol' Fudge Dragon sticking out the back of her tiny swimsuit.

As my dad likes to say: Jesus Tap Dancin' Christ.

So bless her heart, Annie picked up The Girl and sprinted like Usain Fuckin' Bolt to the bathrooms, and dealt with what had to be the gnarliest cleanup job ever.

The boys and I did our part- we stayed behind and made poop jokes.

"Hey Dad! Lauren gave birth to a big, brown, baby boy!"

"Hey Dad! Did you see that mud monkey she made?"

"Did you see that? Lauren made ass-kabobs!" (That was mine. I feel it's important to interact with my children. Shut up.)

So after "wet cleanup on aisle three", we were ready to get back on the road. While we were changing in the restroom that wasn't completely wrecked, I happened upon a California Highway Patrol (or CHiPs) officer that had pulled into the park. Our conversation went a little like this:

Me- "Hello officer. Do you have any idea what the status of the highway is out there?"

Ponch- "Why, yes sir. It's still fucked up, big time."

Me- "I see. When do you think I'll be able to get to San Diego?"

Ponch (smiling)- "Oh, are you and the family headed to Sea World?

Me (smiling back)- "You betcha!"

Ponch (still smiling)- "No, you're not."

Me (smile fading)- "Uh, why not, sir?"

Ponch (smile also fading)- "Because when somebody croaks on the highway, they have to have a full investigation before they move the body. It can take 10 or 11 hours. The soonest you'll get to San Diego is around 9:00 tonight-right when Sea World closes."

Me- "Officer, could you please take your revolver out of the holster, and blow my goddamn head off? Pretty please?"

We paid for the Sea World tickets, and we had reservations at a fairly expensive hotel in San Diego. And we couldn't get to either one. It was 1:00 PM. Now what?

Your hero had a suggestion for the rest of the family. "What if we head back to Nevada? It's Thursday- we can probably get a room at the Buffalo Bill's Hotel, and I'm sure the roller coaster there is fixed by now. They have a nice pool. Then Friday morning, we can get an early start back to Vegas, and spend the whole day there. What do you think?"

Nobody could think of a better idea, so back to Nevada we went. We got our reservation cancelled without charge at the San Diego hotel, so that was something, I guess.

From where we were, it should have taken about four hours.

It took six.

Why, you ask? Because there was a wreck on the highway just north of Anaheim.

Of course there was.

We decided to get off of the gridlocked mess, and take some side roads around the jam. Annie did a hell of a job navigating with her road atlas. At that point, I didn't give a fat rat's ass anymore where we went. I just wanted to keep moving, and get the Sam Hell out of the state.

I officially had had enough of California. I would have rather eaten crushed glass, while talking politics with Barbra Streisand, than spend another minute in that shit-hole of a state.

Get...me...the... fuck...outta...here...

So we finally found our way back to the highway, got past all the traffic, and made our way back across the desert and into Nevada. This time we weren't as lucky with the weather as we were the previous week. It was hot. Like 113 degrees hot.

When we stopped for gas in Barstow (quick note: If the U.S. ever needs an enema, it will be given in Barstow, California), we could barely walk on the pavement at the station with our shoes on. We're talkin' about hot.

And you know what didn't help? Your pasty white little buddy forgot to apply sunscreen before frolicking at the beach. The last time my upper torso was exposed to two hours of sun was around 1994. I was starting to feel significant pain under my "F the French" t-shirt. More on this later. It's not good.

So we finally made it over the state line, I cried just a few tears of joy, and we pulled into Buffalo Bill's at around seven.

The roller coaster was closed for repairs.

Fuck me.

Next time in the fourth and final chapter: Wildlife at Buffalo Bill's, an interesting Friday in Vegas, and our final night on vacation in Green River,Utah.

Up Your Ass, Mickey Mouse (Part 2)

Sunday, July 21st- Disneyland, Anaheim California

So when we left off last time, it was Sunday night, and we were about to go to Disneyland for a few hours. We thought we might get the "lay of the land", and know right where to go when we started again early Monday morning. I was pretty wiped out after driving along the Highway to Hell from Vegas to Anaheim, but I thought I could make it through a couple of hours.

In one of the few wise moves we made all week, we bought a pass for the whole family that would let us ride a shuttle from the hotel to Disneyland for the whole time that we were there. That would allow me to park the van for a few days, and not have to worry about traffic or parking spaces. More about the shuttle and one of it's drivers later on.

You know what? Disneyland has undergone some changes since I was there last. That may be because they're constantly making repairs and improvements to the park. Or it just might be because my last visit was in 1963.

That's right, 1963. I was five years old, John Kennedy was president, and my parents were still married. Within the next few months, by sheer coincidence, both my folks' marriage and Kennedy's brain would explode (other than that, Mrs. Kennedy, how did you like the parade?).

It is a small world, after all, isn’t it? Let's move on...

Now, for you people that have never been to the Magic Kingdom, let your chubby little pal give you one small piece of advice: When you first get inside the park, get the goddamn map. I spent the first half hour in that place spinning around in circles like Dorothy Hamill, trying to get my bearings. Then I had to go all the way back to the gate to get a map. Not a great start.

We got there at kind of a good time, because the people were all lining up on Main Street to see the big parade that they have every night. We thought it would give us a good chance to get away from the huge crowds, and explore the rest of the park.

At first, we decided to split up, with Annie taking The Girl to Toon Town, where they had small rides, and I would take the three boys to the Matterhorn ride, because I knew we could at least find that sonofabitch. I think it was in Adventureland.

The boys and I waited in line there for around 35 minutes, and right when we got to the front, the ride shut down because of mechanical problems. Now if you remember from the last article, we had just gotten turned away from a roller coaster earlier that day at the Buffalo Bill’s Casino, and the pirate show at the Treasure Island in Vegas the night before, because of mechanical problems.

Once again, not that great of a start to our Disney experience.

We were beginning to feel like the Griswolds from the movie “Vacation”. Everything we touched was turning to shit. We hoped that this wouldn’t last forever. If I could have found a live chicken, I would have sacrificed the bastard right there to change our luck.

So we found Annie, and made our way to Frontierland, or Spend-All-Your-Cashland, or some friggin' place. (Quick note: Never, ever go to Disneyland without a cell phone to track down people. You'll come home with half a family. Swear to God.)

Now, it was that first night when Annie and I discovered something that would affect the rest of our trip: we were going to have major problems with The Girl. No matter what the ride was, from the most innocent kiddie thing, like Dumbo, or something a little more grown up, her first response was, “I don’t want to ride that”. Then we’d make her, she’d cry the entire time in line, and then most often she’d have a great time.

This would be the pattern for three…fucking…days.

That happened with Splash Mountain, which was pretty cool, then Butt Pirates of the Caribbean, and some kind of big train ride. There were some others, but it’s all kind of a giant blur now. But it was always the same. She didn’t want to ride it, she’d cry, then she’d enjoy herself. It was day one, so I wasn’t in “find the shuttle bus, and then suck on the tailpipe until I die” mode yet. I was still pretty patient.

We actually had a pretty decent night overall. The lines weren’t that long, and we were getting on most of the good rides. But it was starting to get late, and everybody was pretty tired, considering we had driven in from Vegas earlier that day, and almost perished on the way several times because of the California drivers.

Around 9:00, they had their nightly fireworks display, and it got crowded again in the middle of the park. We happened to be in Tomorrowland, and discovered that there wasn’t much of a line at Space Mountain, which was supposed to be the best ride in the place. So we decided to hit that as our last ride before we called it a night, and went back to the hotel.

Now, you have to be 40” tall to ride Space Mountain, and The Girl comes in at around 42”. So we thought, “How bad can this be? They let little kids ride it.” So we got in line, she cried, and we ignored her. Same pattern as the rest of the night.

My friends, let me start by saying that Space Mountain is the most kick-ass ride I’ve ever been on. It’s a roller coaster that’s completely in the dark, and you’re supposed to be on a journey through space. The music’s fantastic, and you have no idea which way the coaster turns, so you’re bounced around all over the place. Just a superior experience.

Unless, of course, you’re a four year old girl that’s afraid of the dark.

She freaked. And, honestly, I can’t say I blame her. 40” or not, that is no ride for a real little kid. We bought 47 goddamn Disney guides before vacation, and not one of them said that. So I held onto her the whole time, she closed her eyes, and we got through it. The coaster came to a stop, the bars came up, and I was feeling pretty shitty for putting her in that situation.

When you get off the ride, you go out on the opposite side of the car that you got on. The Girl, believe it or not, was a little disoriented and started to exit the wrong way. It was then that this 18 year old female ride attendant yelled in a real snotty voice, “Come on! Get off the ride!”, at my four year old girl who had just been scared out of her wits.

Well, your hero didn’t take that particularly well. As I carried her off, I walked by the bitch and said, “Thanks for being so nice about it”. Pretty tame response under the circumstances, I thought. Then she turned around and shot me one of those dismissive, shitty little 18 year old looks. Goddamn, I hate that look. So I called her a “skagg”. It was the fourth option of what I really wanted to call her.

I don’t know what she thought I said, but Skagg went bat-shit. She followed me all the way down the ramp, screaming at me about using bad language in front of my kids in a family park. I mean, she was all up in my face. I have to believe that in the Disney customer service guide, that’s probably not the way they’d want an employee to handle a dispute with a customer. But there she was, almost nose to nose with me, screaming at me about language.

What the hell would she have done if I had called her a bitch, or the dreaded “C” word”, (which, as it turns out, would have been accurate)? I swear I just called her a skagg. Shit, maybe she read my mind. Because I was certainly thinking the C word.

This turned out to be a pretty big scene. Now I was really pissed. There were only two things that kept me from unleashing my entire arsenal of obscenity (and trust me, it’s extensive). One, I wouldn’t ever do that in front of my kids. And two, I got a mental picture of her calling security, me getting tasered by Mickey Fuckin’ Mouse, and then getting led out of the park in handcuffs, having shit my pants in front of my children.

So I looked at her, shook my head, and said, “Just get away from me”, then turned around, and walked away. I was actually pretty proud of myself for stepping back. Twenty years ago, I would have showed her my ass. Okay, probably ten years ago.

Oh, but Skagg wasn’t done yet.

As we were walking out of Tomorrowland, and heading for GetTheFuckOuttaHereLand, another Disney clone came running after me. Now this was obviously a supervisor. She had to be at least 23.

“Sir, I want to talk to you about the language you used to my worker back there on the ride. You know this is a family park, and we don’t appreciate your use of those words.”

I think mainly because I was so tired, I actually had calmed down a bit. I carefully explained to her what had really happened, why I had said what I said, and that where I come from, the word “skagg” isn’t very nice, but it’s also not obscene. I’ll bet Skagg thought I called her something else.

Supervisor Girl seemed satisfied with that, because she turned around and went back to Space Mountain. I mean, what sense does it make for a 50 year old chunky dude with four kids to get off the best ride ever, look at the attendant, and say, “Oh, by the way, you’re a skagg”, without being provoked? I think she realized that. Plus she didn't want to have to explain to her boss why one of her people got in my face.

I found myself wishing that it wasn’t 10:30, and my kids weren’t exhausted. Because I would have gone back in there and gone up the chain of command, including digging up Walt Disney’s worm eaten, heroine taking, Jew hating carcass, until I got an apology from that little snatch.

Then she could apologize to my little girl.


Monday and Tuesday, July 22nd and 23rd

I won't bore you too much about the next two days at Disneyland and California Adventure, because this story is already turning into War and Peace. Let's just say there were lots of crowds, lots of lines, lots of sun, and we spent lots of money.

Okay, I can't help it. I'll just hit a few of the high points.


1) Our shuttle driver- I told you I'd get back to the shuttle and one of its drivers. Our last two nights at Disney, we had the same guy, and there's a very good chance that the dude was insane. He had a raspy voice that was a dead ringer for Gary Busey, and he would constantly get on the bus PA, and ramble on about all sorts of random shit. Nothing about the park- just whatever happened to be on his warped mind. He'd always start with, "Sorry to interrupt...". We called him Gary.

Some of my favorite moments we had on vacation were the times when my older boys and I would sit in the back of that bus during the trips back and forth to the hotel, and take turns doing impressions of Gary, and making up the weirdest announcements we could think of.

Here are just a few that I can remember (it's better if you imagine Gary Busey's voice):

"Sorry to interrupt, but am I the only one in here that names his socks? I'm wearing Steve and Tony tonight."

"Sorry to interrupt. When I was in Vietnam, I made it with a water buffalo. We have a son together named Dougie."

"Sorry to interrupt. Tonight my macaroni and cheese talked to me, and told me to steer the bus into oncoming traffic. So I'm gonna do that. It never lied to me before."

"Sorry to interrupt. Sometimes I like to hang out in public restrooms, and smell other men's crap."

So we'd spend 20 minutes trying to top each other. By the time we'd get back to the hotel, we'd all be crying, and the other people on the bus would be staring at us. This could only happen with my family. But that's a part of the trip we'll all be talking about 20 years from now. They'll all come to the senior home, and we'll reminisce while I fill up my Depends. It'll be fun.


2) The Foreigners- I know this is an international place, but we spent three days in the park, and there were only two other people the whole time that spoke English. I know the exchange rate is good right now for them, but holy crap. I was left wondering if there was anybody still left in Asia, or were they all with us at Disneyland?

What's really fun to watch is when they pose for pictures. They don't just stand there and try to smile like we do. They act like it's some kind of big spread in Vogue. They'll turn and look back over their shoulder, then put their hand on their hip and pout, that type of shit. Very entertaining.

Now I'm sure it's because they're used to dealing with crowds, but they have no problem pushing and shoving to get to where they want to go. About the fiftieth time that happened, I almost backhanded one of those five foot nothing, 110 pound, skinny sons-of-bitches. But there was that mental picture again- Mickey Mouse, taser, handcuffs, shit my pants. You know the rest.

3) The Little Friggin' Mermaid- Our second night, after seeing all of Disneyland that we could stand for awhile, we went next door to Disney's California Adventure. As the name indicates, the theme there is all about California, complete with movie studios, ocean fronts, etc. This park is a little more suited to older kids, but there is still plenty there for the little ones.

So we were strolling down a boardwalk by a "pier", and happened upon a restaurant called Ariel's Grotto. Now for those of you that don't have a daughter or a gay son, Ariel is the princess in the Little Mermaid movie.

I haven't mentioned this yet, but Ariel is the reason that The Girl wanted to go to Disneyland. She is all Ariel, all the time. Ariel toothbrush, Ariel sheets and pillow cases, Ariel nightlight, and so on. So imagine when she looked inside the restaurant, and there was Ariel, in person, posing for pictures with the guests. She freaked yet again, but this time sort of in a good way.

So we naively walked up to the restaurant hostess, and the conversation went a little something like this:

Me- "When will Ariel be coming out of the restaurant, so that we can get a picture of her with our daughter?"

Hostess (chuckling to herself)- "She stays inside and just takes pictures with the dining guests, you poor, stupid, little man. "

Me- "But you wouldn't mind if we go inside for a minute and take a quick one and we'll be on our way, would you?"

Hostess- "Not at all. Just go ahead and pay for two dinners now, and you can go right on in. In the meantime, do you think you could get your daughter to stop pressing her face against the window so hard? She's going to break through the glass."

I looked down, and The Girl looked like one of those Garfield dolls that is plastered against a car window. She wanted to give Ariel a hug, and right now. The ironic part was that in order to save a hundred bucks, the whole family had gone back to the hotel, and just eaten dinner in the room. We had a suite with a kitchen, and had made chicken burritos. Isn't that smart? Yeah, I thought so, too.

I looked back up at the hostess, and she gave me her extra special, "I've got you by the balls, and you know it, bitch" smile. And of course, she was right. So Annie and The Girl went inside and ate their second dinner in an hour.

That's dinner at the Disney park. We had been warned about the cost of eating a meal there in almost all of our 47 guides. Uh, oh...

To their credit, the restaurant does it up real well. She got to hug and visit with not only Ariel, but a bunch of the other princesses (Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Brian Boitano, etc) came by the table, spent five minutes with her, signed her special Disney autograph and photo book, and took pictures with her. It was very sweet, and was absolutely the highlight of the trip for The Girl.

That's the good news.

The bad news, you ask? Well, that would be the tab for this hour of magic. Annie had a sandwich and salad, and The Girl had a chicken finger platter, or some such nonsense. Oh, she didn't eat it, by the way. Wasn't hungry. Not exactly the Surf and Turf, right? Plus there was the autograph book, and all the photos we bought with her and the princesses.

So when they came back out of the restaurant, I asked Annie what the final damage was. She didn't answer. She just looked at me, dollar signs flashed in her eyes, and I heard the sound of a cash register bell (cha-ching!).

How much? The low, low Disney discount price of $108.

Okay, maybe this is just me talking, but for $108 I think I should have gotten some kind of Little Mermaid "happy ending". Or she could have at least slapped me around for a few minutes with her tail and called me Suzie.

I think the worst part was when the boys and I came back to pick the girls up, the hostess had gathered a bunch of other employees, and they all pointed at me and laughed. I felt so...used.

So those were some of the bullet points. Overall, Disney and California Adventure were pretty cool to see- once. The detail was amazing inside the rides- it really is a visual spectacle. And it was exceptionally clean inside the whole complex- they do a great job with that.

They also had a 3-D Muppet show inside one of the theaters, and that was fantastic. We went to that twice- partly because it was funny, and the images were so amazing. And partly because it was one of the few places where The Girl didn't scream like a mashed cat. She never really got over that Space Mountain experience.

But there aren't enough "kick-ass" rides there to make it worth coming back. The California Screamin' roller coaster is good, the Tower of Terror is spectacular because they drop you about 10 stories, and of course, Space Mountain is the best ride I've ever been on. Well, it's even better if you don't get into a shouting match with a teenager.

But that was really about it. So I've decided that I'm going to wait another 45 years before I go back to Disneyland. I'll be 95, I'll have a cyborg body, and I'll just beam myself there instead of driving through the desert. And I'll bet Skagg will still be letting people off Space Mountain and yelling at little kids.

This time, I'm going to use the "C" word. It won't matter if I get tasered- I'll be shitting my pants by then anyway.

Next time in part three: L.A. traffic sucks ass, the San Diego trip sucks ass, and just to be different, the trip home sucks ass.

Up Your Ass, Mickey Mouse (Part One)

This year we got a big tax rebate check, because, well, I have Wondersperm and we have so damn many kids. But instead of doing the smart thing, like saving it, we decided to blow it all on a trip to Disneyland with the family. President Bush would be proud of us, pouring the bucks back into the economy like that.

The only problem was that we didn’t get enough back for all of us to fly out to California, and then rent a car for the whole week. I knew we should have had more kids. So we decided to pile all six of us into the Honda Odyssey minivan, and head west for a nine day adventure. God help us.

So we all jumped in the van last Friday, full of enthusiasm. This was our first big vacation together, and we were all fired up. Here we are right before we took off.


Sterner family, ready to rock and roll

In the front is Sam on the left- 12, and Mike-13. That's Annie next to Sam (she says none of your goddamn business on the age), and Captain Stubing above Mike. The top row is Ben-8, and finally Lauren- 4. From now on Lauren will be only be identified as “The Girl”. You’ll see why as we progress.

In order to tell this saga correctly, I think I’ll break it down into the different locations we traveled to as the week went on. We could have gotten to California sooner if we had spent more time daily in the car, but we didn’t want to coop the kids up for too long, especially The Girl. Plus we weren’t really pressed for time, so we went at a fairly leisurely pace.

So like I said all week, buckle up kids, we’re headed for Disneyland!

Friday, July 19- Richfield Utah

This was our longest leg of the trip (seven hours), but we thought it would be okay, since it was the first day. We bought some of those portable DVD players for the kids, so they could watch movies and leave me the hell alone.

The Hampton Inn had a decent pool, which turned out to be a huge factor as the week went on. We could have left The Girl at that pool for the whole nine days, gone to California without her, and I think she would have been perfectly happy. In retrospect, we should have done that.


Isn't she just precious? Tell you what, if you have $4.95 on you, she's all yours

Richfield doesn’t exactly rock on a Friday night, but we found a restaurant. Three of us had what they described as prime rib, but we never were sure what species of animal it was. One of us would pay the ultimate price for that dinner the next morning.

Saturday, July 20- Las Vegas, Nevada

We had just a four hour jaunt to Vegas, so we took off at around 10:00. I thought this would be the ugliest part of the trip, being mostly desert. I was wrong. That would be coming the next day.

About halfway there, one of my boys (I promised I wouldn’t say which one) had a sudden, severe intestinal reaction to the prime rib of yak from the previous night. I said, “No problem. I’ll just pull off at the next rest stop, and you can take care of it there.”

He said, “No, dad. Now.” He had urgency in his voice, and, by coincidence, in his bowels. Uh,oh…

So I skidded to a halt near some tall brush, and he was out of the van before the wheels stopped turning. He grabbed the roll of toilet paper that Annie had stolen from the hotel in a terrific instinctive mom move, and made a beeline for the brush. He was in such a hurry, he lost both of his sandals about halfway to the vegetation, and didn’t come back to pick them up. He returned five minutes later, feeling much better after serving up a hearty helping of “ass soup” for the local desert wildlife.

I’ll bet a pack of coyotes happened upon that scene later on, looked at each other, and said “Jesus Christ, that’s nasty. Did you do that?”

Anyway, we drove into Vegas without further incident, and checked in at the Orleans Hotel and Casino. We thought the kids might enjoy seeing the Strip, and riding the great roller coaster at the New York, New York. Plus we’d be able to barricade the kids in the room at bedtime, and then Annie and I could go downstairs and play our favorite game, Pai Gow Poker.

Believe it or not, it’s a little warm in Vegas in late July. In fact, as my dad likes to say, “It’s hotter than two cats fucking in a sock”. Now, your doughy little pal doesn’t function very well in the heat, which was around 106. And if you even think about uttering anything about dry heat, I’ll punch you in the gonads, even if you don’t have any. Dry heat, my chafed ass. It was hot.

So we hit the giant pool at the Orleans for awhile so The Girl would stop bugging us about it, and then got the roller coaster ride in, which the big kids really enjoyed. Then we headed over to see the pirate show at the Treasure Island. After waiting in the early evening heat for almost an hour, we were told that the show was cancelled because of high winds that would affect the boats. We looked up and the flags were barely moving. We decided they didn’t feel like performing, and gave us a bullshit excuse. Goddamn lazy pirates.

This would not be the last time that we got screwed because of some kind of incident like this. More to come later on.

Then my older boys got a whole new experience while we walked along the Strip. There are these maggots all over the place that hand out cards that have a mostly naked girl on them, and a phone number where you can call to get a “date”. Well, I guess they thought my kids were old enough to do the Wild Thing, because they kept trying to hand them cards. Real sweet family town, that Las Vegas.

We decided to call it a night and head back to the room. Annie and I went down to the casino, slammed three Long Island Iced Teas apiece, and got bitch-slapped playing Pai Gow for an hour and a half.

All in all, though, not that bad of a day. Ass Soup boy may disagree.

Sunday, July 21- Anaheim, California

We caught a decent break on Sunday in Vegas, because when we left, there was actually some cloud cover and it was only around 93 outside. So we decided to stop off at the Buffalo Bill’s Casino at Primm, Nevada, right on the border, and ride another big, famous, roller coaster.

But when we got there, the goddamn coaster was shut down all day for repairs. That was twice in two days we got boned by technical difficulties, but we figured we could maybe ride it on the way back through the following Friday. So we loaded ourselves back in the van for the five hour trip to Anaheim.

I had never driven this stretch of highway before, and I wasn’t prepared for two things. First, this maybe was the ugliest country I had ever seen (and I’m from Wyoming, for Christ’s sake), and second, California drivers are the craziest sons of bitches in the world.

Vegas to Barstow is around 200 miles, and features nothing but desert. And, to throw in another of my dad’s sayings, it’s “uglier than a sack full of assholes”. (Writers note: Much of the reason that I’m a warped little bastard is because of my dad. But that’s an article for another day.)

We hit the California border around noon, and I was sure that we would beat the traffic going back to Los Angeles from Vegas. I was a tiny bit incorrect on that last part.

I-15 is two lanes in that stretch, and the speed limit is 70. For that whole time, the highway traffic was what I would compare to Denver at around three in the afternoon. Not quite jammed, but certainly not open. Plus there was a lot of stop-and-go traffic.

Now, California drivers are divided into two groups- those that go 50 MPH, and those that go 95. There is no in between. And the 50 group has no problem being in the fast lane. So that means the 95’s spend their time weaving in and out of traffic like friggin’ maniacs, they wedge themselves into tiny spaces between cars, and then slam on their brakes.

I’d like to think that I’m an experienced driver, but I don’t mind telling you that I was scared shitless for about three hours. I couldn’t keep a safe distance back from the car in front of me, because one of those 95 dickheads would pull into that space. And then we would go from 70 to stop for no apparent reason.

I felt the same way as I do when I’m trying to drive on icy highways here at home: ass clenched, just waiting for something bad to happen.

Well, something bad happened about 100 miles from Barstow. There was an RV pulling a “fifth wheel” trailer two car-lengths ahead of us, in the right lane. Then one of those jackrabbits in another truck, trying to weave his way through, changed lanes too quickly from the left to the right, and hit the trailer, knocking it off the hitch.

Now the trailer, with nothing pulling it but still doing around 60, started weaving back and forth across the highway, totally out of control. Then, just to make things interesting, the bastard caught on fire. I suppose that it was the sparks that it generated when the trailer hitch was scraping the highway that set it ablaze.

This was not good. If there was a big propane tank on this missile, it could explode like the Challenger.

Everybody hit their brakes hard, and finally the Flaming Trailer of Death took a hard right and crashed into the desert. My kids all said, “Wow dad, that was cool!” I may have agreed if my heart wasn’t beating like a hummingbird.

Welcome to California, Sterner family. Enjoy your week.

Once we got past that, and through Barstow, it went a little better the rest of the way to Anaheim. The highway expanded into four lanes, we got out of the goddamn desert, and except for a pretty good jam when we hit Orange County, we got to the hotel without any more problems. Well, Annie had to borrow a screwdriver to pry my hands off the steering wheel after we parked, but that was the only thing.

So it was four o’clock, and we were settled in at the Staybridge Suites for the next four days. Naturally, The Girl wanted to hit the swimming pool first, so we did that for an hour. I noticed straightaway that the pool water was weenie-shrinking cold, and it would stay that way the whole time we were there. I determined right there that between the drivers and their frigid swimming pools, California was trying to give me a heart attack.

After that, we grabbed a bite to eat, and got ready for a quick evening trip to Disneyland. We had passes for three days, so this was kind of a bonus night for us, in order to get an idea of where to go on Monday when we would really hit it hard.

But boys and girls, nothing could really prepare us for the experience that is Disneyland.

Coming next time in part two: SFG almost gets removed from the Magic Kingdom, Los Angeles traffic sucks donkey balls, and a day trip to Sea World turns into a day trip to Hell.

Hockey Fan Taunt

Check out the guy behind the glass...

SFG Nationally Published

So this week, a major national publication finally recognized my bitchin' writing talent. And it only took a little over three decades- what a meteoric rise to fame.

So who published my work, you ask? Was it Sports Illustrated? Hockey Digest? Penthouse Forum?

Oh, hell no. Those rags aren't good enough for my phrases of gold.

I got my dream shot from Memory Makers Scrapbooking Magazine:


No shit-I'm in here

My wife Annie has a friend Noel that is sort of big in the scrapbooking world, and she submitted a layout on a certain middle aged semi-athlete that isn't ready to quit playing yet. The magazine liked it and decided to put it into their September edition. Here it is (click to enlarge):


The camera adds a few pounds. Screw you.

You'll notice two things about the piece. One, even though I composed the sumbitch, I didn't get a writing credit, so I'll have to remain in oblivion for another thirty years. And two, my wife didn't have an action photo of me (all the pictures she had at the time were me standing with my thumb up my ass), so she found an old picture of Dawgs II goalie Bryan Harvey to send to Noel. So you hit the big time too, Bryan. Way to go.

I figure this is the first step in my new career as a journalist. Next, I'll be in Good Housekeeping, and then, who knows, maybe Family Circle?

Dare to dream, little one...