Disneyland Dirty

Disneyland dirty -
middle American muck
clings to us, like dreams.

Despite what you are probably thinking, this is not a rant about how tacky Disneyland is or the bizarre people you see there, wearing pirate mouse ears over their shaved mullets. Even though I am sometimes perplexed by the fashion choices and parenting methods of my fellow visitors, I go to The Magic Kingdom because Disneyland inevitably makes kids - even teenagers - happy. And really, how many places can lay claim to that kind of power? I don't like Disney bashers. They're mean, and there's enough of that in this world.

But yesterday I went on my bi-annual trek down to The Happiest Place on Earth with a whole Suburban full of students and experienced a revelation: Disneyland is DIRTY. No, not soiled and gum-on-your-shoe dirty - the place is actually obsessively neat in that regard. Cheerful Cast Members are all over the place, sweeping and emptying clever thematic trash bins and wishing you a "good day" while they do it. More than once I had to hustle to beat a lady with a cleaning cart into one of the pristine bathroom stalls there.

HOWEVER ... somewhere just outside of Tomorrowland it occurred to me that even the most obsessive cleaning crews couldn't do anything about my fellow guests. And - how shall I put this? - not all of them seemed particularly concerned with good hygiene. Disney forces you into proximity with others at every turn; from the moment you're herded onto the tram to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers from Topeka and Taiwan, you are, basically, at the mercy of the Gods of Contagion. Forget all the folks who blithely skip right out of the bathroom without washing their hands - and trust me; in the ladies room outside Cinderella's Castle, at least, there were a lot of them. Hour-long lines in which you are literally chained into tight herds of humanity provide ample opportunity to observe myriad gross habits:

• Little kid with the sickly green discharge coughing and sneezing all over without a single parental attempt to get him to use his elbow or even, God forbid, blow his nose? I did The Matterhorn with him.
• Woman with - I swear to God and the image nauseates me still - a large open sore on her tattooed arm resting said arm across the seat back of the boat in front of me in Pirates of the Caribbean. (Which happens to be my favorite ride and she RUINED it.)
• Not one but two open-air diaper changes with nary a sink in sight;
• Finally - wait for it - a completely oblivious "Ukrainian Hankie" right into the waters of the Jungle Cruise. Even the guy doing the lame safari-guide-schtick broke character for a second and looked appalled.

By the time the tepid, probably fetid, waters of Splash Mountain were washing all over me and everyone else in our shared petri dish, I knew it to be true. Disneyland is a pandemic waiting to happen. Toward the end of the day I was passed by a Japanese tour in which several members were wearing those medical face masks that I've come to equate with the Avian Flu, and I was actually a little jealous: Why hadn't I thought of that? The best I could do was make it through the two-hour drive home and have a long, hot shower once I got there.

After that, I had the most wondertful dreams. Maybe they'll all come true - that is, after all, the Disneyland promise. I'll be back. Maybe I'll just be wearing a face mask. And gloves.