Well, the Xmess parade is over for another year.
The local Jaycees put the parade on every year and every year my office is scrambling at the last minute to get our entry in. The theme this year was "A Colonial Christmas". As near as I could tell it was totally ignored. We chose to do the Grinch and the elves again. I got to be the Grinch, again, as I am the only guy in the office willing to put forth the effort.
I called my friend Susan the Massage Therapist down the street this past week to ask if she could drive us in her car again. It is a 1971 Oldsmobile 442 convertible painted midnight purple. It is Da Bomb. Her father bought it new for $2,000 she said. It used to be canary yellow. She is a sweet person, I should spend more time with her.
Lynn went to the costume store to get the Grinch suit. It was a different one than last years. It had a HUGE head piece reminiscent of the Scary Rabbit in Donnie Darko, a green body suit, Santa coat and them curled up shoes. It was hot as hades in that thing, the head loping back and forth I had to hold it in place with one hand to see and get air thru and eye hole.
Susan arrived about 4 with the car. We had already commenced drinking. A blender full of daiquiris followed by Coffee laced with Bailey's Irish Creme, only 4000 calories. Hila Lee had made costumes for the other agents, 4 of them, and her daughter and niece, neither of whom had ever seen a parade let alone be in one. Lourdes tied balloons to the car and I filmed it, all the loose tongues speaking of husbands, passing motorists and what they had for lunch.....Then we piled in and made our way down the street, Clampett style, to our spot, #90, past people mowing the grass on the first day of December in the dark. "Have you been drinking? We have!" Kerry yelled at them.
And so we began our wait. I spoke with the Elder Avery Preston who I graduated high school with, now the pastor of the outreach ministries who had the float behind us, pulled by a large semi. We noticed sever people dressed in Civil war garb and figured they were reinactors until their float took off, they were the Stuart, Virginia chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, parading thru a town with a 50% African American population flying Confederate battle flags. We all looked at one another like OMG! I did the rumpshaker dance in the middle of Market street for a group of carolers, who howled. It was great fun.
Then we finally took off after 45 minutes, I was gasping for breath in that headpiece. The kids were wide eyed with wonder once again to see the Grinch. I think he is more popular than Santa. We got up to the old court house and I hugged the camera man from the local cable station. Then the car died. Susan got it cranked again with my jumping in the back seat, pumping my arm like a train. The cars timing is set high, it is meant to fly the road, not creek long with a bunch of elves in tow.
We rounded the corner to the city hall and the car died again. It didn;t want to start this time, so I hopped out to help push it out of the way of Avery's semi and no sooner did my curled shoes touch the ground did it fire up and take off leaving me and the elves behind.....the crowd busted out laughing. O-well, we walked arm in arm up Church Street, occasionally posing for pictures and shaking hands and panting for breath.
After about a block, Kerry told me if I ran I might could catch the car, so I took off running down the street, all the floats now totally out of sync, I was holding on to my head for dear life, the crowd was cheering me on and I could see the car getting closer and at the last second I leaped, did a Luke Duke across the trunk, became entangled in the balloons and landed head first in the back seat. People were screaming, I was laughing, Susan was laughing, the elves were left behind and thankfully in a few more minutes the thing ended and we beat a hasty retreat to the office. Esseffejoe called me on my cell phone that I had carried inside my giant green glove "oh me, I'm in a parade....."
I was drenched with sweat. Luckily there was an extra t shirt to put on. Luckily the belt buckle had not scratched the trunk, luckily no one died.
Topic: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings (Read 2649872 times)