I just posted in another thread how I couldn't quite remember the Haunted Mansion's stretching room spiel, but somehow this infamous incident is emblazoned on my memory like it happened yesterday. And on this obscure Disneyland tale my memory is a tad sharper than yours, my friend.
Brady McDonald's wife, Nancy Luna, was the Food critic for the OC Register back in the 2000's, and her name is inextricably linked to the concept of entitled Annual Passholders. She was a Karen a decade before they existed.
It was March, 2009 when Disneyland had the "Get In Free On Your Birthday!" promotion in 2009 in the wake of the financial crisis of '08 when the economy collapsed into the Great Recession (which makes you wonder what they'll roll out in '21 for a New Great Depression).
Ms. Luna had a lower level Annual Pass to Disneyland, and because her legal birthday fell on a Saturday and thus a blockout date in March of '09, she was given a free ticket to enter Disneyland on her birthday. But she already had an AP and had been to Disneyland a dozen times already that year, and she wanted the "free" $79 gift card that was offered to Premium Annual Passholders who had paid for 365 days of admission to Disneyland. (Disneyland one park tickets cost $79 in '09) But she wasn't eligible for that. She was eligible for free admission on her birthday, which was a blockout date for her lower level of AP. She was devastated. She was furious. And she cried at the guest services window in the Esplanade but the mean CM wouldn't budge and would only offer her a free ticket into the park that day. She demanded to speak to a manager, again a decade before Karen entered the national lexicon. But the manager wouldn't budge either, and only offered her a free ticket into the park that day. Plus some Kleenex for her tears. Happy Birthday!
So her husband, Brady MacDonald, wrote all about this insulting and traumatic experience his wife had to endure on her birthday in his travel column in the Los Angeles Times. And both he and his wife were summarily ravaged on message boards and blogs of the day. As they should be.
Fast forward 11 years, and now Brady MacDonald is doing what every journalist still barely employed by what's left of American journalism is doing; he's shilling for and sucking up to whatever big company asks him to.
I had no idea what happened to his wife Nancy Luna, the OC Register is a hollow shell of its former self, but a quick Google search just led me to this hilarious career update...
"Nancy Luna is a senior editor at Nation's Restaurant News. She covers the industry's largest and most talked about fast-food brands including McDonald's, Starbucks, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC and Subway."
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I wonder if she cries at the McDonald's shift manager if her Big Mac is mushier than usual?
www.cnn.com
