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The foam-rubber costume felt, to my tired muscles, as if it weighed a hundred pounds. The air inside the oversized head was thick, stale and well over 90 degrees despite the fact that the actual temperature was a pleasant 70. As another bead of sweat stung my eye I was forced to ask myself , "Why did I ever agree to this.?"
A simple phone call from my friend Jon, the promotions coordinator where I work, had made it seem easy enough.
"Management wants the radio station to make its presence known at the parade," he had told me. "Just put on the hippo suit and have fun with it. The whole staff will be there too. It'll be great."
He was referring to was the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade and at the time I'd had no reason to doubt his endorsement of the event. I had worn the suit before at a few more low-profile activities. The pay was decent and I thought perhaps it would even be fun. However, as I received another hard kick in my (thankfully) well padded backside from a drunken reveler, I began to seriously reconsider my friendship with Jon. As I continued wearily along the parade route I tried to remember exactly when everything went sour.
If there is one thing I've learned over the years, it is that parades never start on time. This one, though, was late even by parade standards. I had already gotten into costume in the hopes that the head would muffle the interminable marching tune being played by the band behind us. As the temperature rose I began to regret it my decision.
When we began to move two hours later I realized that the shiny red convertible that everyone else was riding in was not meant for me. No room in the Dodge. This poor hippo would walk the route.
Under normal conditions this would not have been so bad. Unfortunately the evil mastermind who had designed the costume had sewn the legs together at the thighs. This made taking a full step impossible and forced me to walk in a shambling gait sort of like…well, like a hippopotamus walking on two legs. Trying to keep up with a moving car in this manner would soon prove to be impossible.
The kids loved me. Unfortunately so did drunks of all shapes and sizes. For every half dozen kids that I hugged or shook hands with , I received an equal number of slurred requests for the same from bikers and construction workers. A painful embrace given by an oversized refugee from sumo camp caused me to fall farther behind the car.
After my second face-full of silly string I decided to let the crowd admire me from afar. The costumes' eyes were made out of a thick mesh which gave me fly's-eye view of the world. This was awkward enough without being exacerbated by neon-colored party chemicals. The goo had also gotten into the head's air-holes which frightened me a bit. Non-toxic or not,
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