I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies)

by Laurie Notaro

  So that was why I was at Disneyland. I thought it would make up for the alleged, imaginary fruit thievery incident, especially if I maxed out the one relatively good credit card I had left at the Disney Store before the fifteenth of the month.

  Now, I quickly learned that this trip wasn’t as much a vacation as it was an extreme sporting event. Earlier that morning at the “Character Breakfast” in Goofy’s Kitchen ($35 to have the Mad Hatter hop around your table like a flea as you’re trying to eat your Mickey Mouse waffles and peanut butter and jelly breakfast pizza), I asked Nick what he had planned for his big day at Disneyland.

  “Well, I would like to meet Mickey Mouse,” he said as I smiled at his humble expectations. “And then I’d like to ride all roller coasters, some of them twice, go to Tom Sawyer Island, climb Tarzan’s Treehouse, get in the Safari Boat, see all the movies, hug all of the characters, and then eat food from room service.”

  “Hey, how are those waffles?” Mad Hatter asked as he hopped back to our table. “They should make Mad Hatter waffles! Mad Hatter waffles! Waffles with a big hat! Those are the kind of waffles I’d eat!”

  “You know, we could have grabbed a bagel outside for two bucks, but then the delight of having a neurotic midget dressed as Oscar Wilde buzz around us like a palmetto roach as I’m getting ready to gorge on my breakfast lasagna would have been lost forever,” I told my sister.

  Suddenly, my nephew squealed, “Goofy! Goofy!! Over here, Goofy, over here! It’s my birthday!”

  I turned around, and there he was; that giant dog thing or walrus or whatever he is suddenly appeared, pulling the little children toward him like safety pins to a magnet.

  “Oh, Goofy, please come here! Please! It’s my birthday!” my nephew cried, waving his arm frantically.

  “It’s my un-birthday! Come to my tea party!” the Mad Hatter warbled to no one.

  Suddenly, Goofy noticed Nick and made a beeline for us, as Nicholas jumped out of his seat and gave Goofy a big hug.

  “Oh, sure,” the Mad Hatter spouted. “Goofy’s hot. Everyone loves Goofy. No one loves the Mad Hatter. They all want Goofy!”

  “I love Goofy!” my nephew said, going in for another hug as Goofy patted his head.

  “Goofy thinks he’s all that, but he’s not,” the Mad Hatter continued. “You’ll hug Goofy but you won’t hug me. But let me tell you something, Goofy is not as hot as he thinks he is. Are you, Goofy? Are you?”

  And then, as both my sister and I turned to look at Goofy and Nicholas, we both saw that Goofy’s middle finger—and I mean there was no mistaking it, since he only has three of them—was vividly scratching his nose, the finger on either side folded under.

  “I think somebody slipped some serious acid into my Mickey Mouse waffles,” I whispered to my sister, who had the very good sense to press the “record” button on her video camera as soon as the Mad Hatter started to lose his shit. “Or did I not just see Goofy flipping off the Mad Hatter?”

  “Uh-huh,” she replied, her mouth open, aghast.

  “That is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, with or without the benefit of pharmaceuticals,” I said, completely amazed. “I’d totally give them both fifty bucks to fight.”

  Before I had a chance to access an ATM for the loot, the Mad Hatter was busy annoying someone else and Goofy had moved to a table where an unattended toddler was trying to feed him a Danish through his mesh mouth.

  Act Two: The Lair of the Pooh

  Our first stop at Disneyland, as dictated by the birthday boy, was to find Winnie-the-Pooh, which we did in his little designated hundred-foot wood. As we stood in line to wait our turn, something suddenly struck me.

  “I just realized that most of these characters are highly indecent,” I said as I looked around. “If Donald Duck can throw on a shirt, why can’t he put on pants? Look at Winnie-the-Pooh over there. He’s totally exposed from the waist down. If anyone else approached a kid dressed like that, they’d be doing three to five!”

  My sister pretended to ignore me.

  “It’s an astute observation,” I continued, apparently to no one in particular. “Personally, I think it’s about time somebody said something. I mean, if you can’t even say the word ‘Halloween’ in a classroom, somebody ought to tell Winnie that he needs to cover up his . . . stuff, even if he is all smooth right there. It’s the implication, is what it is.”

  Soon, Nicholas was in front of the line, and when it was his turn to cavort with the half-naked characters, my sister flashed me a look that told me not to ruin it for my nephew.

  Frankly, however, this wasn’t the first time my family had encountered something of a problem with the Winnie-the-Pooh crew. Not the first time at all. As soon as my sister gave birth to Nicholas, it gave her a valid reason to go to Disneyland, a place that she truly loves, every three months without getting odd looks and comments from the rest of us. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising at all when she bundled up her then eight-month-old baby and took him to the Magic Kingdom. With my parents in tow.

  They packed up the minivan and hauled the car seat, a bouncy chair, several strollers, a playpen, enough toys to open a day-care center, and headed to California for a five-hour drive. My mother, who can get carsick simply by touching the door handle of the backseat, was really in no mood for shenanigans once they reached Disneyland and found Winnie-the-Pooh’s lair. It was never really clear whose idea it was that all five of them be in the group photo with Pooh and his posse, and after what happened, it’s obvious why.

  Eeyore did a nasty to my mom.

  It’s true, my mother swears up and down, that the purple, clinically depressed four-legged creature handled her. She stoutly contends to this day that as the photo was about to be taken with Piglet and Tigger, Eeyore reached over to feign putting his arm around her and instead served himself a hungry man’s helping of rump cheek with his aubergine hand, or paw, or hoof, or whatever.

  Typically, my mother would have reached up with one of her sculptured nails and popped his big googly eyeball right off his big felt head, but nausea had the best and feistiest of her, and the only violence she could summon up against Eeyore was a disgusted look. When I asked her what she said, she replied with, “Well, what the hell do you think I said? I said, ‘You know, you’re weird in the videos I’ve seen, and I don’t care how sad you are because nothing goes your way, you’re a sicko! A sicko! You know that? That’s why things don’t ever work out for you, you friggin’ sick donkey!’ ”

  I knew enough to stay away from the big purple menace during this encounter, that’s for sure, I didn’t care how harmless and despondent the predator seemed. I understood now how Eeyore could have thought my mom was pretty hot compared with what he saw on a daily basis, and frankly, if he went for my mom’s caboose, I was in big trouble, considering how absolutely delightful I looked in comparison to other park attendees. The last way I wanted to spend my day at Disneyland was screaming for security to come and get a huge-ass horny donkey off me after he knocked me flat to the ground, his pinned-on tail swishing wildly in anticipation.

  For Mr. Winnie-the-Pooh, however, I had other plans. While he stood there, watching my nephew getting hugged by Tigger, I felt I had no choice but to say something; after all, this probably was going to be my one and only opportunity to confront him about his quite liberal apparel policy.

  “You know,” I said point-blank to him, “would it kill you to put on some pants? I mean, really now. The kid’s like thirty inches tall, which is guess where on you? Have a little respect, you know what I’m saying?”

  Winnie just shrugged and then patted me on the shoulder.

  “What does that mean?” I replied as Winnie blatantly walked away from me. “You know, if I showed up to work dressed in your outfit, they’d send me for an ‘evaluation,’ then I’d get sued for sexual harassment, plus, no one would ever eat lunch with me again. Maybe in the porno world it’s a bit different, but out there, you’d eat every honey pot alone, mister!”


  It was at that moment that Winnie tapped my nephew on the shoulder and invited the thirty-inch kid to come in for an out-and-out bear hug, and then motioned my sister to get in on the deal, too, which she vigorously joined, like Winnie-the-Pooh was Brad Pitt. I stood there for a long time watching, an outsider, an outcast.

  Then Winnie looked up from the love fest and waved at me, made my nephew wave, and then made my sister wave. I don’t care, I thought to myself. I don’t. Go ahead and wave. Exclude me. I’m the only one brave enough to say what we are all thinking, or at least, what perhaps only a few but very observant people are thinking, or maybe if even I am alone in my observations, marching around in a theme park like it is some half-nude nudist colony is still not very polite, even if you are supposed to be a cartoon character.

  “Winnie thought you were very funny,” my nephew said as we got to Toon Town. “And I think you’re silly, Aunt Laurie.”

  “Mmmm-hmmmm, yes, I know, but when you’re older, they call it ‘manic depression,’ ” I said, nodding as I caught the glare of my sister, which told me not to ruin this experience for the boy, too.

  Act Three: “—All Wet, She’s Cry—”

  “I love Gadget’s Go Coaster!” my nephew said to me as we came closer to the boarding platform. “You’ll ride the ride, too, won’t you, Aunt Laurie?”

  “Of course,” I said, remembering my sister’s look and trying my best not to be a Mr. Booley and the Forty Dollar Apple Spoilsport. “It’s your birthday, how could I not?”

  My sister and nephew climbed into the last seat of the last car, which was shaped like a round, bulbous, hollowed-out acorn, and only sported a seat big enough for two. I hopped into the seat in front of them, and my nephew squealed with glee as the train took off. The whole ride, which was a basic, no-frills kiddie roller coaster sporting props of oversize combs, big gears made from huge bottle caps, wooden blocks, and a couple rather large stationary frogs, lasted no more than a minute, so when the train pulled to the boarding platform at the end, Nicholas said he wanted to go again.

  Off we went on the Go Coaster, making another round, and as we pulled up to the platform this time, Nicholas said he wanted to go yet again as the other five people on the ride got off, leaving the whole train empty except for the three of us.

  I turned around to tell Nicholas how cool it was that we got to go on the next Go Coaster trip alone, but the seat behind me was empty. They were gone. Vanished.

  Puzzled, I looked around, thinking, “Oh, I get it, I get it. This is my punishment for setting Winnie-the-Pooh straight. I get ditched. Aunt Laurie gets blown off, and now I get to look stupid and wander around Toon Town trying to find my family while they spy and laugh at me from behind Goofy’s Bounce House. Very nice. Very nice,” when suddenly, I saw the two of them running along the boarding platform and then quickly jumping into the very first seat of the very first acorn four cars ahead of me.

  Before I could even say anything, much less move up near them, the train took off and there I was, alone at the back of the train, riding this kiddie roller coaster essentially all by myself. My nephew was shrieking and having a delightful time far, far, far ahead of me, and I was trying to concentrate on his fun when we turned a bend in the ride, and then suddenly out of nowhere, something hard and fast struck me in the side of the head.

  I grabbed my skull, which was now wet with a liquid I was really hoping was not a body fluid, like blood, and that’s when I saw it. That’s when I saw what I had just passed, which was the seemingly placid, peaceful, unaggressive frog statue until it decided to spit at you with a fire hose of water that was conveniently hidden from view. I was still trying to wipe the water from my face when we pulled into the boarding station next to an empty platform.

  “Wanna go again?” the conductor yelled to Nicholas, who promptly responded with a joyous round of yesses, and the conductor took off for our next round without even stopping.

  This time, I knew where that goddamn frog was and prepared myself to be spat upon, and when I finally breathed a sigh of relief that I had not been attacked again, we were back in the station with a still-empty platform.

  “AGAIN?” the conductor shouted happily, not even slowing down as we headed for another trip.

  “Hey!” I shouted from the last acorn, which was apparently a sound vacuum, as we roared ahead. “You guys, I’m done with this ride! Aunt Laurie is done!”

  PPPLLLLTTT!! went the frog as I passed him again, hard and fast like the first time and just as wet.

  “AGAIN?” the conductor screeched as we rounded the corner and approached another empty platform.

  And there I was, there I was, a wet, childless woman in her thirties, riding solo in the very last mammoth acorn on a kiddie ride, trying to wipe water out of her eyes, one side of her head dripping with frog spit, as she went around and around and around the Go Coaster, people in Toon Town walking by and mumbling audibly as I passed again and again and again;

  “—poor little—”

  “—all alone—”

  “—bet she’s backward—”

  “—not a friend in the—”

  “—all wet, she’s cry—”

  “—should call CPS—”

  “—tard—”

  Now, honestly, it’s not the first time I’ve been mistaken for a person who’s wiring has shorted out a bit, but it stings just the same every time, every time.

  Finally, THANK GOD, someone was on the platform when we came around the last time, much to the chagrin of the popular ride people in the very first row, who got out of their seat and walked away like I wasn’t even there, way behind them in the last lonely acorn.

  “HEY!!” I shouted after my sister, who was busy laughing with my nephew as they raced to another ride. “Hey! Wait, you guys! Wait for me! Please!”

  “What happened to you?” she said when she saw me and eventually stopped. “You look awful! Well, at least it’s not as bad as what I just heard. I heard there was a little mentally challenged girl on some ride around here who wouldn’t stop crying. Cried till she was sopping wet. Isn’t that sad?”

  “That’s sad,” my nephew seconded.

  “The frog on your ride hocked on me, you know, and wrecked my pretty supermodel hair,” I complained. “And I think it also left a hematoma where the spray hit me in the head. It’s all soft and squishy in that spot now.”

  Act Four: Raising the Stupid Death Bar

  “Gadget’s Go Coaster made me ready for Splash Mountain,” Nicholas asserted. “Can we go, Mommy?”

  “Oh, come on, dude!” I whined as I stomped my foot. “I already look like a sponge! Splash Mountain? Let’s go back to the hotel and eat room service stuff, okay? It’s on me. Eighteen-dollar grilled cheese sandwiches for everybody!”

  Nicholas shook his head. “Splash Mountain,” he demanded.

  “Hmmm, does Splash Mountain have a backward r in it?” my sister said, looking me dead in the eye and rubbing her chin for emphasis. “Does it? I can’t remember, Aunt Gloria, does it?”

  “Okay, fine,” I surrendered. “I am here to pay for my sins. I’ve already been baptized at Disneyland, I just don’t want to drown.”

  “Just don’t sit in the first seat,” my sister said. “Those people are the only ones who get wet.”

  I really had no choice. I nodded, surrendered, and walked with my sister and my nephew into the entrance of Splash Mountain.

  “Now, remember, don’t do something stupid and get out of your seats on this ride,” the man in front of us told his two nearly teenage sons. “A guy died on this ride not too long ago when he tried to do that.”

  A look of panic washed over my sister’s face. “Excuse me, what?” my sister said as she tapped the man’s shoulder. “Someone died on this ride?”

  “One more round at Gadget’s Go Coaster and I’d be dead,” I offered to no one. “That ride tried to lobotomize me.”

  “Sure did, but at the one in Disney World.” The man sighed. “
Got gored by a big log coming the other way, full of people. I saw it on CNN. No way you coulda stopped that thing, logs don’t have brakes.” I was stunned, but also felt a tremendous sense of relief. The Stupid Death Bar had now been raised to such proportions that even I couldn’t reach it in my final moments, even if they rolled out the way I had anticipated them to. I always imagined I would die one of two ways: taunting a wild animal at the zoo until the lion, tiger, or Kodiak bear bursts through their defective cage and mauls me, peeling the skin off my head like a grape; or that I am killed by my own car when it suddenly lurches forward as I try to open the back gate so I can park and I become trapped between the two. In this scenario, however, I do not die immediately; it takes an extended period of time, such as overnight, for me to finally succumb, during which I call my husband’s name over and over in a cry for help. However, he at the same time finds it remarkable that an unseen character on a Law & Order marathon has the same name as he does, although the mysterious phantom is never seen in the show.

  Before I knew it, I was hustled into a log, sitting in the second seat behind one of the almost teenage sons of the guy ahead of us in line.

  He looked at the wet side of my head and gave me a pained smile.

  “I know you were hoping to be straddled by a skinny blonde cheerleader with perfect skin and a Crest Nighttime Whitening Strips smile,” I let him know. “But an hour ago, I was the hottest chick in this park.”

  He grimaced visibly and moved forward on the log before we lurched and then took off.

  I wonder if I am in the killer log? I asked myself as we climbed the first incline and I heard my nephew squeal with anticipation directly behind me. What’s that there? Is that blood? Why would you even want to get out here? I thought, looking around. It’s not like there’s a $12 funnel cake stand or a Cinnabon up here somewhere. Not even a gift shop. Nowhere to buy mouse ears, I kept thinking as we reached the top, paused for a moment, and then dropped furiously downward, and that’s when I gasped.