Kids Are Smarter Than They Look

"What the hell happened to Clifford? Did they get sued for racism and had to switch up the color?”

Synopsis:
       As I was working one morning on the book floor, an opportunity arose for me to dress up as a character for the stores infamous story time. Regrettably I had done so, and I can say this with complete honesty that I will never fucking do something so ridiculous ever again in my life. Kids are to damn smart.




Full Story of Kids Are Smarter Than They Look:
 

When grown men aren’t jerking off in the Kids Department, or creepily walking around aimlessly without any of their own children at their side, the Kids Department houses nice events for children in the community. We’ve had quite a few instances where we had to ask grown men to leave the department, because it was pretty obvious that they were stalking young children. Fucked up, I know. But aside from these foul instances, Jenna our Kids lead, hosts story time twice a week. She sits down with children a reads them a nice picture book about dogs, and cats and whatever else it is that kids like. Occasionally, story time involves the appearance of the main character of whatever the featured book for the day is, yet someone to dress up as the character isn’t provided to us, one of the book sellers has to wear the costume. I had done this one time, and never again will I do such a thing.

It was Friday morning when I arrived for my morning shift on the book floor. After our morning meeting, everyone went to their places and the store opened. I looked at the DAS (Daily Assignment Sheet) to find that thankfully, I wasn’t break bitch for the day; a wave of relief came over me. Yet this relief was short lived, for when our community relations manager Margaret, who manages school visits, and Kids events came into the store. She asked me to do something I completely regretted agreeing to hours later.

As Margaret walked in with multiple shopping bags in her hands, she frantically came up to customer service, where me and Sebastian had been standing.

“Sebastian, I don’t have anyone to be the character for the day.” She said with worry in her voice.

“What do you mean?” he replied.

“Alex was going to do it for me, but as you already know, he called out this morning. He called me on my cell on my way here to let me know he wasn’t going to be in. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“No worries” Sebastian said, “Well figure it out… What if you dressed up?”

“I can’t you, know that. I hyperventilate and freak out, I’m claustrophobic.”

There had been an incident once when she dressed up for story time. She had no one else to dress up as the character, so she was forced to do it herself, and wound up passing out in the suit in front of a mass of children. She had been dressed up as a dog, so the kids went frantic thinking the dog had died. I remember standing up at customer service when I heard the commotion, and shortly after, mothers began walking their children out of the store.

“Mommy, why did Clifford have to die?” a crying child asked.

“Oh no sweetie, he was just tired and needed a nap, like you need right now.”

  It was pure chaos, yet amazing.

Remembering this incident, I started to walk away from their conversation, knowing what was going to happen next, but it was too late.

“Sean.” She said as I paused, “Do you think you could do me a huge favor and be the character for the day?”

I was silent for a few seconds, thinking about how I was going to talk my way out of this.

“Um…” Fuck I thought, I couldn’t think of anything, I had been deprived of my morning caffeine fix.

 “Is there anyone else to do it?” I asked.

Margaret walked around the corner of the desk and picked up the DAS.

“I can ask around but with Alex not coming in, we really have no one else to do it.”

“Alright” I said and walked away. I had thought I dodged the bullet but not even ten minutes later I got a call on my wireless store phone from Margaret, begging me to be the character. And after a few minutes of her begging for me to do so, I gave in. She had offered me lunch and essentially an extra thirty minutes of break time; my inner fatty couldn’t decline such an offer.

At eleven o’clock I had walked into our receiving back room where the characters’ costume had been held, shipped in to us the day before. I was told I had to be out there, dressed up in the kids department at eleven thirty, so I had given myself thirty minutes to go dump and get ready. As I opened the large box contain the costume, I saw a big yellow dog head sitting atop a mass of yellow fur.

“What the fuck is this?” I said, “I thought Clifford was red, he’s the fucking big red dog right?”

My receiving manager Owen had been working in the vast stock room with me, and began to laugh.

 “That’s Spot, the yellow dog. Not Clifford.”

“What the hell happened to Clifford? Did they get sued for racism and had to switch up the color?”

He laughed harder, yet I was being dead serious, I never knew there was another book written about a big dog.

“No, it’s sad that I know this but that’s a character of a totally different story. I only know that because I see every book that comes in this place.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s why you know that” I said jokingly.

As I removed the contents of this large coffin like box, I picked up two pairs of gloves, a large torso with leggings attached, two shoes, and of course the big fucking dog faced mask. The complexity of its assembly was alarming, so I consulted the character manual, attached to the top portion of the box.

“How the hell am I supposed to get into this thing?” I said aloud.

Owen was atop a ladder pulling down boxes and yelled, “Just follow the manual step by step, it’s a pain in the ass though.”

“I see that” I said as I flipped through the manual’s pages, yes… pages.

As I was trying to fit my legs into the torso of this costume, Sebastian came through the receiving door with a cart full of books that needed to be returned.

“Hey Sebastian,” I yelled almost falling over, “Do you know how to get this damn thing on?”

He laughed, “It’s going to be great seeing you in that thing.”

“Fuck you.”

He laughed, “I’ve never been able to fit into one of those things without ripping the threads, but I have helped someone put it on before.”

“Lucky you, now come help me out here, I can get my feet through these fucking holes.”

With Sebastian’s help, we were able to get my feet through the leg holes and the whole torso on. The stomach bulged outward, making me feel like I had just instantly gained two hundred pounds.

It was 11:20 as I looked at the clock on the wall; I had to be out there in ten minutes.

“Alright, let’s get these paw pads on.” Sebastian said gesturing for my feet. I sat down and we began putting the paws on my feet, which was a whole other process in itself.  Once we successfully strapped my feet into the paws, I stood up only realize that there was a good 6 inch gap between the top of the shoe and the bottom of the leggings, with my dark leg hair out in the open air.

“Well that’s fucking obvious” I said.

“Sean, they’re kids for god sakes, they won’t realize it. We don’t have time, we’ve got to get you out there.”

“Alright, If you say so” I said.

Sebastian placed the Dog faced mask on my head as I put the gloves on. Within a matter of seconds, the temperature inside the helmet increased dramatically. I looked up at the top to see a fan and was thankful, yet it wasn’t blowing.

“Hey is there any way to turn this fan on?” I said.

“It might have worked a few years ago, but every single one we’ve gotten has had a broken fan, we don’t have time.”

“Figures… my luck.”

Sebastian started to walk me through the receiving area towards the door as I tried to see as best I could through the meshed eyes of the mask, waddling and knocking books off carts as we walked.

Sebastian laughed, “This is fucking great, you of all people dressing up, I’ll be taking a video of this just so you know.”

“That’s great. Just get me out there so I can do this and come back, I’m fucking sweating my balls off already.” I said as we walked through the door, and past the bathrooms toward the Kids Department.

I could hear Jenna telling the story to the kids already.

“Spot wanted to ride his bicycle to the park, so he put on his helmet and took his bicycle carefully out of the shed…”

We turned the corner and began to walk toward the stage area where story time was being held. I could see the kids now, there had to be at least twenty five to thirty kids sitting around the stage listening to Jenna.

She had lifted her gaze, and smiled as we walked closer to the area and said,

“Look kids, Spot came for a special visit to see you all!”

The kids cheered as they turned their heads watching us approach. Sebastian led me up to where Janessa had been sitting, and helped me to a chair. Yet as I was about to sit, I realized that the leggings would ride up my shins, making my legs even more visible, so I decided to stay standing.

Jenna continued on with the story as I waved to the kids; I didn’t know what the fuck I was supposed to do, no one had told me. At the end of the story, Jenna let the kids come up and give me a high five, which in turn basically was an invitation feel the shit out of me. I was being groped everywhere imaginable by these kids, as I stood there waving and high-fiving others.

There was one kid off to my far right, who was staring intently at my bare legs; I could read his mind as he was questioning what exactly my bare legs were. He walked up and knelt down beside me, and began poking my right shin hard. I looked down to see this boy studying my legs, as he poked at them a few more times. I started to shift away from him but he began to move with me, wanting to examine my leg more. Finally he stood up and gave me a high five, yet when he did, he held on to my glove, and began to analyze it.

“This little bastard needs to study to become a scientist” I thought as he began to thoroughly analyze my fingers through the gloves.

 He started pulling on my fingers, and as the glove started to slowly slip off, I quickly clenched my hand in a fist, trapping the boys hand for a moment.

“Ow!” he yelled and backed away.

“That’s right little fucker, backup” I thought.

He returned to his mother who had been taking pictures of me, and said,

“Mommy, why does Spot have hairy legs?”

It was at this moment, that all of the kids around me had focused their attention to my bare hairy legs.  

“Fuck” I thought, “This isn’t good.”

Several kids began poking at the bare part of my legs, a few beginning to pull the hairs out. At this point I had wanted to take my mask off and say,

“It’s because I’m fucking fake you little shit, I’m not real and neither is Santa Clause or the Easter bunny you damn kids.” Thankfully I didn’t.

Jenna became aware of what was happening and said,

“Ok kids, Spot needs to leave now. He has to go back to his own family at home just like you all do.”

“Thank god” I said under my breath.

Sebastian immediately came up to me with a smirk on his face and walked me out of the department to the back room.

“That was fucking amazing, that kid totally figured you out.” Sebastian said.

“Yeah, who was the guy who said they wouldn’t recognize shit? Those little fuckers pulled out a shit ton of my leg hairs, I don’t know how I held myself back from kicking them.”

Sebastian was crouching at this point, gasping for air as he laughed away as I was fuming with rage. Jenna came back in the receiving room as I was taking off the sauna box of a costume.

“I am so sorry Sean. That was a mess. Were they pulling out your leg hairs?”

“Yah, they sure were.” I said. 

She began to laugh, obviously trying to hold it back as she covered her mouth with her hand.

“You all think this is so funny, here Sebastian take a seat, I feel like pulling on some hairs.” I said grabbing for his legs as he jumped away from me and ran to the other side of the room.

I got my free lunch out of the whole thing, but it sure wasn’t for free. The kid who had figured me out couldn’t have been more than four. And from that point on I never thought of kids as being as dumb as they looked. My leg hairs grew back, but god damn did that fucking hurt.