It’s summer time (Don’t well actually me about the date not being June 21st) which brings about new pressures of what to do with a nearly three year old kid. It’s tempting to go for “Nothing” because nothing is always good, but she’s not going to be 2 forever and these moments are slipping away, so the better option is to go with “Something” because when you’re going to want to lay some groundwork for when you’re 85 years old and your daughter is deciding on which nursing home to send you to, and which assistant will wipe your ass. So we packed up the car, did a quick stop over at Grandma’s place in Jersey and headed out to our first big amusement park: Sesame Place. Or as we told her “Disney World” (Be cool guys.)

Look, I get it. It’s Memorial Day, so calling this Boots On The Ground might be a little uncool. So it’s definitely not called that, and don’t bother me about the suggestion that it might be. My ass is covered, thank you very much.

We purchased season passes, because it really doesn’t make sense not to when Grandma lives about 45 minutes away, and pre-discount tickets cost a whopping $75. Plus we get 25% off snacks and souvenirs, which will come in handy as everything is marked up by approximately 50% to begin with. And we get premium parking. Pretty effin sweet. Now the park opens at 10am, so naturally we did the prudent thing: Assume the crowd will be NBD and leave Grandma’s place at about 11:30.

Hey guess what? Premium Parking can fill up. Who knew? So we had to scrap that and park at the back of the trashy-ass commoner parking lot, filled with jackoffs and basic bitches. I bet none of them even realized that they were in the presence of season ticket holders. PA trash the lot of them. It should be known that Sesame Place is a lawless land. Here are people ignoring the traditional Walk/Don’t Walk signals, choosing to interpret this as “High five, let’s cross the street.”

Then we get to the park.

Seems like they missed a golden opportunity to include the Count here, but whatever. While Sesame Place tries its hardest to brand itself as a cookie cutter, suburban Shangri-La, I saw that it’s customers keep it pretty real. There seemed to be a pretty solid mix of douchebag jabroni Phillies fans with tribal tats in place of t-shirts, and a bunch of really cool Yankee fans with tribal tats in place of t-shirts. I won’t take pictures of strangers, but go see for yourself.

Even if I don’t have kids of my own?

Especially if you don’t have kids of your own. I’m sure it’s super chill to do that and won’t instantly get you placed on every watchlist.

Anyway we got in. There are Sesame Street things everywhere. Here’s Mr. Hooper’s place.

Hey fun fact: Mr. Hooper died when I was about 3, and I’m pretty sure it’s how I first understood the concept of death.

Sesame Street’s not going to bullshit a three year old. People die. For real. Mr. Cooper didn’t retire to live on a farm. He’s in the mother fucking ground, kid.

Later I used that as a bit for this site, but I don’t think anybody caught the reference. I guess it’s okay to explain the joke this far down the road.

Alright, enough mulling about the specter of death. Time to get down to business. First things first: Do the first ride you can see*. In our case that was a carousel. One half hour wait in the sun later, and we were riding along in style. Let’s be clear about one thing: That song with the “Sunny days, sweeping the clouds away” was not meaningless dribble. It was legalese. They were letting you know up front that you will melt to death. My daughter exclaimed that she was having fun, completely unprompted by me. The wait sucked, but she was happy. I give this 4 Elmos.

*First ride that your two year old can handle. You are flanked by two goddamn roller coasters when you walk through the door. What maniac children are both into rollercoasters and still into Big Bird. I have an answer for that later in the article, but at the time it was really puzzling.

As for rides…that was it. No more rides today. Rides require lines, and lines suck ass. And also most of the things seem pretty sketchy. Oscar’s Rotten Rusty Rockets? Snuffy’s Slides? Jesus, Sesame Place, I know you came from the late 60’s Lower East Side, but calm the fuck down. I don’t need it to feel like a Lou Reed album. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of other crap. After that we went to the Monster Clubhouse. Let’s get something straight: This clubhouse kicks ass. There are bungee cargo nets high above everybody, and you just jump your ass off. No lines whatsoever. My girl was a little thrown off because it was super bouncy, but eventually I picked her up and got to watch her face battle between terror and bliss. I assume this is what the dating scene is like for most girls. So this is good practice. Also I burned roughly 2,000 calories. Here’s my face before lunch.

I give this as many Elmos as you want, in this half assed rating system.

Next up is lunchtime. I’m not going to beat around the bush. Lunchtime is trash at Sesame Place, and they don’t let you bring in your own food. Hey guys, I’ll pay $50 to not have to eat your offerings. Meet me half way. We walked in and out of some place where you can get sub-Cici’s quality pizza for $18. Then we went to Cookie Monster’s Cafe, which shockingly did not have cookies. Instead they had this.

Good lord. I was thinking I’d get the bacon cheeseburger, but realized that it would be terrible, so I got a hot dog, because hot dogs are already terrible and you can’t screw up what’s already broken. We got 2 hotdogs (with fries), a chicken tenders (with fries) a large drink and a milk, and Sesame Place taught us how to count to $47. The fuck? With our season pass discount it was $35, but even still. Never eat at Sesame Place, folks. Also, there was a bit of drama when I’d looked over and told my wife “Wait, what the fuck happened to your hotdog, honey?” It was still there, only there were these chunks taken out of the top, as if a tiny beaver had started chipping away at the top of the frank. She told me “That’s how I eat hot dogs.” As if it was an ear of corn.

If you’d said “Should she be jailed for that?” I would have said, no, of course not, and the Internet outrage is tiresome. If you’d mentioned that “What if your daughter sees that and starts eating hot dogs in that fashion?” I would have said, okay, maybe 30 days. We never eat hot dogs, and this is a pretty good reason to never pick up the habit.

After that came the parade. The parade was pretty cool, because I have a two year old, and she was 100% here for it. Big Bird leads the pack, and if it was nothing but Big Bird, it still would have been a pretty great moment. But the whole gang was there. She sat on my shoulders, and after I pointed down to see who else was coming, I got to hear her scream “THAT’S ELMO.” Good lord, this kid likes Elmo. Later we repeated the same experience with Cookie Monster. Just so you know, the rankings for my daughter are:

1. Elmo.
2. Cookie Monster.
3. The Field

No, she doesn’t give a shit about Zooey or Abbey. I mean she likes them, but she’s not going to side with them just because she’s a girl. STOP PUSHING YOUR FEMINIST AGENDA, SESAME STREET.

My daughter even got a high five from Grover. And I learned from his handler that apparently Grover’s real name is “Jake.” I’d watched Sesame Street for 35 years, and I had no idea.

I give the parade all the Elmos. Although, I was also pretty fucking tired from lifting her on my shoulders. Combined with the jumping, and the lack of eating, I’m starting to think this place was just so my wife could get me to drop 10 pounds the hard way.

After that we headed over to the Count’s Fountain. This water castle had everything. Big splashes. Slides. Band Aids. And my wife couldn’t join us, because she didn’t bring swimwear and thus, couldn’t say things like, “Stop it, that’s dangerous.” The big bucket dropped on my girl’s head. I watched as she looked as if she was being electrocuted, followed by the endorphin high of surviving. Would recommend. We spent about an hour there (just go ahead and give it all the Elmos again), before the dark clouds rolled in. I got her out of the pool before the rain that my wife assured me would never come, came. We ducked for shelter. I bought souvenirs. An Elmo shirt for my girl. And this bad boy for me.

My wife couldn’t roll her eyes hard enough. My wife doesn’t think this is cool.

My wife is wrong.

We debated leaving. We ended up staying, and the crowd thinned out, but our girl was asleep for a late nap and there was no way to know how long she’d stay out. We walked around taking in the sights, debating which rides she could handle and which she couldn’t. In a shocking twist, I’m the voice of reason here. I don’t think she can handle most of this shit, and I’m bringing her along slowly. The last thing I want to do is get too ambitious and turn her off from going to amusement parks in the future. Yeah, I’d save myself some money, but I want to come to these places too. Also, when I was two my mom took me to Knott’s Berry Farms and I tried to kill myself by jumping out of the ferris wheel while my mom screamed to stop the ride. She’s two. Let’s see what she can do when she’s three.

Finally we went to a live show. My daughter tolerated the host coming out and trying to gin up excitement, but then the gang came on stage. Abbey, Telly, Grover, Cookie Monster, and mother fucking Elmo.

This.

Was.

Lit.

We started in the back, but then we kind of had to move. I’m not proud to say why, but here it goes. There was a special needs adult who was sitting next to us, who was waaaay too into this Art is Magic show. I’m going to let him be, but come on, man. The guy’s standing on the bench stomping his feet and losing his mind. His buddy might have reeled him in and suggested to not go quite so off the rails. But hell, we just moved up, and she got even closer to the action. Anyway, I guess that guy might have liked the roller coasters.

Here’s why taking my daughter yesterday was so great. She’s not quite 3 years old. The four and five year olds? They know it’s all an act. They’re cool with it, because they like the characters, but they are aware that Elmo isn’t real. My daughter? She does not see an act. That’s the real deal up there. She’s seeing Elmo. Everybody else is at a karaoke jam. My daughter has floor seats for a Beyonce concert. I would pay all the money I have to replicate that experience, and Sesame Place knows this. Goddamn it.

The show ended. We got her an Elmo bubble maker and left the park. Later she took her first shower, because Grandma’s bathtub hadn’t been cleaned, and she had just been in that water park in the hydro-fracking capital of America. My daughter was an EPA disaster site. She screamed at first, but she handled it and got some chocolate for her efforts.

I guess I’m supposed to complain about things, because that’s what gets clicks, but I’m not going to lie. Yesterday was a good day.