Don’t hate millennials for loving Mickey Mouse
Were you the childless person who bought a Mickey Mouse pretzel at Disney World a few months ago, triggering a woman in line behind you to suffer a mental breakdown?
She’s back.
Her return has set off a fresh internet food fight over a familiar question around here: Should people without kids be welcome at Disney World or pummeled?
The anonymous woman would opt for the latter. She posted a Facebook diatribe a few months ago that found its way onto Twitter last week.
Through the mystery of social media, it got more than 70,000 likes on Twitter. The New York Post stoked the furor with an op-ed headlined “Sorry, childless millennials going to Disney World is weird.”
Sorry, but if childless millennials want to go to Disney World, I say let them have at it.
In fact, Disney should play off its successful “Gay Days” campaign and start “Childless Millennial Days.” Instead of red shirts, patrons could proudly sport crisp white T-shirts with sayings like, “Look, no baby drool!” or “I’m 29 and my mother still does my laundry.”
And I swear that’s the last bit of millennial snark you’ll read here.
I hate passing up cheap shots at the demographic, but millennials should not be theme park shamed, especially by someone who loses her mind over a Mickey Mouse pretzel.
“Aiden wanted one but he line was very long so I said later and it broke his poor little heart and he cried,” the woman wrote.
We can only assume Sentinel Columnist
Aiden is the woman’s son, though he’d probably deny it.
“I WANTED TO TAKE THAT (DIRTY WORD) PRETZEL THAT TRAMP LIKE THANKS (DIRTY WORD) YOU MADE MY SON CRY!” she ranted.
She may be a wackadoodle, but at least she’s not snooty. For that, we turn to the New York Post.
“Millennials are indeed in an unhealthy relationship with Disney, having granted control of so much of their leisure time and personality to a single, enormous corporate entity meant for children,” the paper said.
I can’t totally disagree with that pontification. For years, I played dumb when my kids asked about Disney World.
Alas, classmates kept blabbing about their trips to the theme park. My daughters eventually figured out it wasn’t really in China.
So I cashed in my 401k to fund our day at the Magic Kingdom. It’s basically the Disney tax all parents are required to pay.
I’ll admit the ensuing childlike excitement was worth the price of admission. But I still can’t fathom why anyone would go to a theme park unless their kids were holding a gun to their heads, or unless they enjoy waiting in endless lines next to aromatic strangers.
I can do that at the Department of Motor Vehicles. And the DMV vending machine doesn’t charge $10 for a bucket of popcorn.
“Why do the same old, safe, boring thing when you could buy a roundtrip Norwegian Airlines flight from New York to Paris right now for $280, get an AirBnb and sit along the Seine drinking rosé?” the New York Post asked.
That actually sounds snobbishly dull. But I’d sure take a week rafting the Grand Canyon or losing golf balls in British Columbia over the prefab fun at Disney World.
But that’s me. Who am I and who is the New York Post to tell anyone how to enjoy their leisure time?
If you prefer drinking a Wonderland Slush at the Cheshire Café over French rosé in Paris, drink up! Besides, the world’s largest theme park has something for all ages.
Walt Disney probably never envisioned patrons trying to “Drink around the World” at Epcot’s 11 pavilions. But even if you’re 29 and want to spend your vacation riding Dumbo the Flying Elephant, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Well, maybe there’s a little something wrong with that. But I must fall back on the immortal words of English author Evelyn Beatrice Hall: “I disapprove of childless millennials going to Disney World, but I will defend to the death their right to do it.”
Especially if they stand in line ahead of Aiden’s mom.