Yes, you read the title correctly. My life's goal has been completed. I am the mascot at The Franchise.
On Being the Mascot
It's just as much fun as I thought it would be. The suit is about seven feet tall, and the only visibility is through the giant, creepily smiling mouth and the giant, never-blinking eyes. Seriously. This thing's creepy.
The limited visibility in the suit makes things such as walking a lot more interesting. The operator of the suit has to constantly bob his head around and crane his neck to get any kind of idea of what's going on around him. When the operator takes the suit off and attempts to walk, he must remember to cease bobbing his head, as he is now a normal person, and people who walk like seagulls are generally known as idiots. I may or may not have learned this the hard way.
Once I have the suit on, I become another person entirely. I hand a lot of balloons to little kids, give a lot of high fives, and engage in an inordinate amount of dancing. This is another thing I have to adjust to when I take off the suit. You see, when there's a seven foot tall ice cream cone doing the Macarena in front of a group of kids, they squeal and giggle, and the parents find it amusing.
When it's a seventeen year old kid with glasses enthusiastically doing the Macarena for the kiddies... Not so much.
I had to consciously restrain myself from dancing in front of several children after I clocked out tonight.
My co-workers warned me that it wasn't always fun. They were right, to some extent. It gets very hot in the suit. The air you're breathing is the same air you've been breathing for the past two hours, mixed with sweat and the smell of fast food. Not extremely pleasant.
Also, the suit is pretty heavy, so your shoulders get tired quickly. And the arm holes are out the front of the suit, rather than the side, so you have to walk around kinda like a zombie. A zombie seagull.
(As I composed this post, I thought I'd check and see if there are any image results for "zombie seagull" from the Googles. There are.)
On Being the Mascot
It's just as much fun as I thought it would be. The suit is about seven feet tall, and the only visibility is through the giant, creepily smiling mouth and the giant, never-blinking eyes. Seriously. This thing's creepy.
The limited visibility in the suit makes things such as walking a lot more interesting. The operator of the suit has to constantly bob his head around and crane his neck to get any kind of idea of what's going on around him. When the operator takes the suit off and attempts to walk, he must remember to cease bobbing his head, as he is now a normal person, and people who walk like seagulls are generally known as idiots. I may or may not have learned this the hard way.
Once I have the suit on, I become another person entirely. I hand a lot of balloons to little kids, give a lot of high fives, and engage in an inordinate amount of dancing. This is another thing I have to adjust to when I take off the suit. You see, when there's a seven foot tall ice cream cone doing the Macarena in front of a group of kids, they squeal and giggle, and the parents find it amusing.
When it's a seventeen year old kid with glasses enthusiastically doing the Macarena for the kiddies... Not so much.
I had to consciously restrain myself from dancing in front of several children after I clocked out tonight.
Also, the suit is pretty heavy, so your shoulders get tired quickly. And the arm holes are out the front of the suit, rather than the side, so you have to walk around kinda like a zombie. A zombie seagull.
(As I composed this post, I thought I'd check and see if there are any image results for "zombie seagull" from the Googles. There are.)
This was the closest thing I could find. It's a zombie-skeleton-surfing-bird... thing. You're welcome.
Overall, though, it's a fun job. The hordes of kids swarming around you provide something of an ego-booster, albeit a strange one.
See you guys next time.
Quote of the Day:
"Mommy, I don't wanna hug the giant ice cream cone!"
-A traumatized four-year-old