To get to the crackhead we must start at the beginning.
Princess Palooza in Point Pleasant, NJ. No, I’m not talking about a ladies drink free sweat fest in the back of Jenkinson’s or a gay only night at Martell’s or even a drag show down the boardwalk – I am of course talking about Disney princesses. As a father of two girls, you find yourself getting dragged to events you didn’t know existed and that you never thought you would attend in a million lifetimes. But when your wife asks your almost three-year old daughter if she wants to go see Disney princesses and you watch the purest excitement, almost to the point of tears, and a resounding, ear shattering “YES!! PWEEEEEASE!!!”, you have no choice but to tag along. You can’t miss a moment that your daughter might talk about for the next 24 hours until she forgets and moves on to the next thing. If you saw my daughter’s face and heard the next sentence, which went something like “Can I wear a princess dress, too?”, you would know I had absolutely no choice in the matter. I had to attend Princess Palooza in Point Pleasant.
Here's the thing - Point Pleasant is, well, not pleasant at all if I’m being honest. I’m not talking about the entire beach town, which I lived in for about a year, I’m talking about the boardwalk. Any person with a set of eyes knows that boardwalks are trashy places. Let me just throw out a few names and let the names alone conjure up images of hell. Atlantic City, Venice Beach, Seaside Heights (where the television show Jersey Shore was filmed). Need I say more?
I feel like I need to take a shower and get checked for syphilis after typing out those three locations. I don’t know what attracts the scum of the earth to these destinations but there is never any shortage of the worst humanity has to offer at any given boardwalk. It had been a while since I’ve been to such a place and I think I forgot where I was going because I decided to dress nicely – a polo shirt, shorts, and flipflops. It must have had something to do with my own daughter’s dress request. If she was going to go in a dress I didn’t want her shlubby father embarrassing her in front of the Disney princesses. I dressed for the occasion and for my daughter. To say I was overdressed is an understatement which will make itself clear in the subsequent paragraphs.
When we approached the parking lot near the aquarium I knew we were in trouble because the lot was full and there were about a hundred little girls in princess dresses in the parking lot alone. There were mothers pushing three pronged strollers and fathers being dragged towards the boardwalk and random kids running across the street with no care for looking both ways. All these little monsters had their eye on one prize – the princesses. I hadn’t noticed the adults in my attempts to dodge toddlers in my vehicle. In fact, I didn’t notice much of anything as me and my wife attempted to wrangle two kids and a stroller up to the boardwalk and then down on to the packed beach where the princesses would be performing on a stage in front of a blow-up castle (FYI – strollers do NOT work on sand). Once we found a spot, and I stopped sweating, my eyes finally opened to the hellish scene. I knew this night would be awful.
To start – there was almost a fight. A guy with lips tattooed on his neck decided to stand directly in front of a couple with two kids. That’s right – a grown man with the below tattoo on his neck decided to take the view of a poor little girl because he needed to get a better vantage point of some out of work actresses dressed up as Moana and Elsa.
Lips guy was of course yelled at by the girl’s mother, had some choice words for her until the father got involved, and then said, I quote, “It’s not like I’m the only one standing here.” If I wanted to get involved, and possibly throw hands with this piece of garbage, I would have said something to the effect of - “So if every pedophile jumped off a bridge, you would too?” But he wasn’t blocking my daughter’s view, so it wasn’t my problem. I’m no hero.
Luckily at these types of events I have a distinct advantage. I am tall and when you add a toddler onto my shoulders, she can see above almost anything. So at the stroke of 7:00 PM I propped her up onto my shoulders and waited for the princesses to make their way to the stage. You could cut the tension with a knife.
When I tell you I have never heard a more underwhelming sound than the speaker system they set up for this show, I mean it. The intro music sounded like it was playing off of someone’s iPhone. But that did not stop a raucous yell from all the children in attendance when the seven princesses walked out on stage. There were kids that made mad dashes towards them, there were kids that made mad dashes away from them, but even worse there were parents and kids who were running late that made a mad dash towards the beach from the boardwalk. The place filled up in under 30 seconds flat and we were now surrounded by hundreds of awful parents, with hundreds of awful kids.
If you’ve read this Substack before then you know as much as I may dislike individual people, I am pro human being in general. I have said, on this here Substack, that I think people should have more kids. I affirm life and think there should be more of it. But my faith was shaken in a big way as I stood there with my daughter on my shoulders, smacking my head in excitement. I heard insults hurled at kids from parents, I heard insults hurled at parents from kids, I saw pushing, I saw shoving, all in the name of getting a glimpse at some fake-ass actresses singing “Let It Go” out of speakers that were worse than my old Razor’s.
There was a glimpse of hope, however. About 10 minutes into the show my daughter pointed to the ocean and said “Oh look, the ocean. Can we go?” I immediately took her down from my shoulders and said “Yes, of course” when my wife barged in and said she would take her. I guess, considering my wife birthed her, she has first dibs on just about anything. So as my daughter and wife headed to my favorite place on planet earth, the Atlantic Ocean, I sat with the stroller and watched the show with my three-month-old who can barely see past her own hands. By “watched the show” I do not mean the Disney princesses. I mean the show of deplorable human beings I was surrounded by. One lady yelled at her daughter for not twirling enough in her princess dress for a TikTok she was making. One creepy guy shoved pizza down his daughter's throat unbeknownst to him because his eyes were glued on the princesses. There was even a loner, with no kids in sight, taking pictures with a very high-quality camera. What he was taking pictures of I do not know, but it was at that moment that I wished I had a Niqab or a Burka to cover up any female with the last name Muka. There are sickos everywhere.
When my wife and daughter returned, and my daughter asked to leave, I jumped at the opportunity. There was only one problem. A woman, who I can only describe as a vegetable, had been dragged by her awful caretaker to the show who was blocking the boardwalk I had driven my stroller on to get in.1 Imagine taking someone who cannot breathe on their own, cannot walk, cannot see, to a Point Pleasant Princess Palooza show? I shuttered and whispered to my wife that if I ever find myself in a vegetative-like state to please, for the love of God, smother me. Instead of driving the stroller on the path I picked it up, almost blowing my back out, and ran as fast as I could around the disgusting crowd and onto the boardwalk.
I had hit a low point. Was this the best humanity had to offer? I sure hoped not. I was expecting a depressing ride home. I tried to think about all the people I love and admire and respect but each image was getting shot down by the next group of toothless freaks walking down the boardwalk. It was at this point when a guy walked past us with a sweatshirt that said, “Don’t Let a Crackhead Out Hustle You Today”. You have to ask the question: who reads that shirt and actually gets inspired? I imagine this guy hanging this mantra up in his home like the sign in the Notre Dame locker room the players touch every time they walk out onto the field.
I was down bad. I wanted to flee. I wanted to leave and never come back. I wanted to curl up in a little ball and die. But then something magical happened. My daughter saw hermit crabs. She watched them crawl with such amazement that I had almost forgotten where we had just come from. Sure, the hermit crabs reminded me of the people climbing over one another to get a better view at the princess show, but her fascination with the little critters unthawed my frozen (no pun intended) heart.
We kept walking down the boardwalk and decided to take a detour through the section with rides. My daughter was in awe and I thought my heart was going to break in two when she wanted to go on them. My daughter is short and I thought there would be no way she would meet the height requirements for the majority of the attractions. If she wanted to go on one and was denied I would be writing an entirely different piece. It would probably read more like a manifesto in which, during the off season, with no one around, I would have the entire boardwalk booby trapped with explosives and taken down in one loud ka-boom. But luckily, she just made it by an inch for half of them.
We hit the spinning dragons, the teacups, a pirate ship boat ride, and she even went on her first ride all by herself. The joy of watching your kid on her first ride, smiling as wide as she can, arms raised in pure excitement, yelling and screaming “wooooohoooo” had officially restored my faith in humanity. It was a close call, I assure you, but my daughter rescued me out of the depths of Princess Palooza depression. That’s the thing with kids – they give you your lowest lows but also your highest highs. Be prepared. Cherish the highs. Because the lows…are fucking low.
The best part of having kids is their restorative properties. With every little smile they rebuild your hope. With every yelp of excitement any despondent thoughts of the future seem to drift away. Even the biggest cynic will find it impossible to look into a two years old’s smiling eyes on a Nemo ride and think anything less than children, and in turn humans, are a good thing. And even if half of them turn out to be the mongaloids I saw at the princess show, at least the other half has a chance, and want to go look at the ocean instead.
P.S. - The fact that my daughter wanted to leave the show in the first place means the wife and I are doing something right.
P.P.S – I love New Jersey but even I can’t stick up for boardwalks any longer.
P.P.P.S – I remain steadfast in my opinion – have kids. Even if that means going to a nightmare fueled Princess Palooza show.
P.P.P.P.S - The girl that sang “How Far I’ll Go” (the Moana song) killed it. That must’ve been what inspired my darling girl towards the water. The answer to the question of how far will I go for my children has been answered – I will go to the depths of hell (Princess Palooza at the Point Pleasant boardwalk) and back for them.
I’m a fiction writer at heart and even I couldn’t make this up.
These things are never what they seem .
Btw Alex, your father and I were very close to buying Dempsey a hermit crab 🤪