A crowd overtaxes my sense of duty and I tend to short-circuit . . . : A Mouse Cooked Sugar

The purpose of a Valley column is to write about the Valley, but occasionally I am so overwhelmed by the enormity of a single event that I stray beyond the constraints of assignment in order to regain my psychic balance. What I mean is, writing is therapeutic when the mind is in disarray.

You see, we went to Disneyland.

That represents no trauma to those of a less sensitive nature, but I am composed of high-voltage plugs and wires that allow scant respite from the diligence of duty at amusement parks of mass appeal.

I was certain, for example, on this day in question that, should I release my hold on a child for even an instant, he or she would disappear forever in the eddies of sticky wonderfulness that abound in the Glucose Kingdom.

I am no fan of Disneyland. That it is imaginative, beguiling and the product of genius I have no doubt. If you like bugs that blink and sing and smile forever, it is probably the most wondrous place on Earth. But the crowds. . . . Oh, my God, the crowds . . . .

It was my idea in the first place to go. I’m not sure why. I’ve dragged children there before and have returned shell-shocked by the experience. But the mind has a way of expunging yesterday’s torment. It is God’s method of perpetuating parenthood.

I suspect that my wife may have planted the notion in my head without my realizing it, whispering in my sleep over a period of several weeks, “You want to go to Disneyland, you want to go to Disneyland. . . .”

I only recall that I awoke one morning and proclaimed in robotic tones that I wanted to go to Disneyland. She said, “What a nice idea to visit Mickey Mouse on his 60th birthday.”

When it finally occurred to me that I was about to risk my sanity in order to celebrate the birthday of a rodent elevated to mythic heights, I shouted “Wait!” but it was too late.

I was suddenly trudging through the almost unbearable cuteness of Fantasyland, fearful that at any moment I would drop dead from exhaustion and be doomed to an eternity of seraphic animals with liquid eyes and pure hearts.

Only once before in my life have I felt so helpless. That was on a midnight outpost in Korea when I realized that all those voices I was hearing around me were not variations on a Donald Duck imitation but Chinese soldiers looking for a Marine to send to hell.

It was small comfort to realize in the center of Disneyland that no one was trying to shish kebab me with a bayonet. Other agonies prevailed.

We had brought with us three very good friends. Travis is 5 and emotionally incapable of remaining in the same place longer than 32 seconds; his sister Shana is 18 months and given to striding off into the mist at every opportunity; Nicole is 2 and determined to shake hands with every costumed ding-dong that comes marching down Bubblegum Lane.

I say this not in derision because I dearly love these children and, under less trying circumstances, would gladly bounce them on my knee or tell them a story or do whatever it takes to keep them happy.

It’s just that the calamity of a crowd overtaxes my sense of duty and I tend to short-circuit at fun-time. I feel, you see, that it is up to me to keep everyone together, to keep track of the children and, at all costs, to move from here to there in an efficient and organized manner. Fat chance.

I don’t know how many people visit Disneyland on a given day because Disneyland will not release these figures. I can understand why. You’d never go.

Travis and I waited an hour to ride a whirling pink elephant, but the ride was too brief to determine whether or not we had a good time. It was just long enough for him to lean over the side about 12 feet in the air and wonder that if elephants flew, why not boys?

I was in a sweat most of the time and not just from the kind of weather that can fry a man’s brains, but from the absolute certainty that we would end the day with fewer than the four children we began with. I mean the three children we began with.

That’s another thing.

We brought three strollers with us because Travis, who is old enough to walk, insisted that if the girls rode, he was going to ride occasionally too, but at one stage of our fun-time, we ended up with four strollers.

In an effort to keep everyone organized and moving, I had grabbed a stroller myself and was pushing it smartly out of Bear Country only to discover somewhere around Davy Crockett’s canoes that it wasn’t ours.

“All strollers look alike,” I said after returning it.

“I’m just happy someone’s baby wasn’t in it,” my wife said.

We managed to somehow make it through the day without Travis leaping from Casey Jr.’s train or Shana striding off with a family from Kyoto or Nicole running away with an animated bear.

The electrical parade was the final glory.

“You seem almost happy,” my wife said.

I was watching a float that featured a creature that blinked from atop a giant mushroom.

“I was just thinking,” I said, “that if something went wrong with the wiring on that float, we could end up with Tinker Bell sauteed in mushrooms.”

Or a mouse cooked in its own sugar.