Mickey Gets Poo on Hands

It was bound to happen. The show, after all, features nearly 40 live animals, all needing to deficate at one moment or another each day, often in the arena itself. Already some of our four-fingered friends (Disney characters) had stepped in manure. On this occasion, it got on Mickey's hand. It started during the medicine ball pass game of the first show. Sometime during the course of this exciting event the Gold Star medicine ball landed in some manure, certainly not for the first time in the 17 year existence of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Disney Village, Disneyland Paris France. Between shows the props technicians failed to clean the medicine balls for reasons unclear to me. They are an extraordinarily industrious bunch so they were likely repairing things important or creating some masterpiece of a set element for a grand production to take place in the near future. Or hanging out smoking. Cigarettes one would hope. At any rate, they were clearly not motivated to clean our balls. Thus, during the second show when I reached down to grab two balls I noticed the gold one had a slathering of manure affixed to it. I carefully handed the ball to Annie Oakley, giving nod to the manure. She subsequently showed it to the cowboy in the arena, who wrinkled his nose in disgust, then threw the ball into the arena. When the cowboy reached down to grab his ball, he decided to rub it in the sand first to dislodge the manure then handed it to his teammate. The second teammate handed it to the third, then to John, the fourth. John held the ball up to Mickey, last in line, to show him the manure. Mickey apparently missed all the cues regarding the manure and simply grabbed hold of the ball, getting crap on his hands. All of this would be no big deal except that apparently Mickey thought the cowboys had intentionally rubbed manure onto the ball, or intentionally handed it to him knowing it still had manure on it, or something, because when Mickey got backstage he stomped in fury, all 4 foot 8 of him, to the Production Office, rattling the handle to the door in hopes it was open to receive his fury. I could hear his famous high-pitched voice as I walked up the corridor. "Golly!" he exclaimed, "I have poo on my hands, all because of those darned cowboys! Poo!" to which Goofy replied, "Pooh!? Gawrsh! Is Tigger with him? Gaahuckh..!"