Happy Easter!

Since I'm probably rushing around trying to find my shoes to get to church and figuring out how to cook ham without giving people trichonosis, I'm re-printing an older Easter post from what I can now refer to as "The Early Days" of the blog.  Happy Easter, and I dearly hope you have eaten fewer Reese's peanut butter cups than I on this blessed day.

The Son has started baseball, which means we spent an inordinate amount of time in large, grassy areas.  As we are pulling out of the ballpark, we see a costumed Easter Bunny standing in the middle of a huge field where presumable volunteers were throwing a gazillion eggs and candy all over the place.  I shudder.

ME:  "Did you know I was the Easter Bunny once?"
HIM:  "Really?  Like in a costume and everything?"
ME:  "Yes.  When I was Marketing Director at the mall, we had an Easter Egg Hunt, and my bunny bailed at the last minute, so I had to suit up."
HIM:  "Whoa, cool.  What was that like?"
ME:  "Extremely hot and sweaty and painful.  The kids beat me up.  I've tried to block it."
HIM:  "Did you make them mad?"
ME:  "No.  They were non-believers intent on disproving the whole Easter Bunny thing."

It's true.  I was the Crayola Easter Bunny at the Pentacrest in downtown Iowa City in 1995.  Freshly engaged, I thought perhaps with marriage and potential children in my future I should try to soften up toward kids, since they had always sort of annoyed me.  I donned the fur suit, which was hotter than the pits of Hades, and started sweating it out.  Let me just reassure you now that while some of the minor details may have faded, this is a Hand-To-God true story.


I walked over to the field with the assistance of one of the mall cops, because you can't see a damn thing out of those bunny heads.  You can't hear in the bunny head.  You can't walk in the bunny feet.  The Crayola outfit comes complete with pastel-hued overalls with a huge pocket on the front, and white furry feet that are about two feet long.  It's just a train wreck waiting to happen.

 Photo of actual costume.  But my feet were bigger.  

Now you can feel my pain.

When the kids saw me, they went apeshit crazy.  I was like the Beatles after Ed Sullivan, but with candy instead of sex appeal.  I stumbled over the field, little arms from invisible children hugging my legs and tripping over my enormous feet.  I tried to pat them on the head, but managed to poke more than one kid in the eye or punch them in the face.  I couldn't tell if they were screaming in joy or pain, I just knew I Must.  Keep.  Moving.  

 But at least I wasn't THIS guy, because that looks hot.  

And someone might accidentally shoot you.

After a while, the toddlers made way for the fourth graders, who ganged up on me and kept saying, "I know you're not real".  Since my Crayola Easter Bunny costume didn't have a moving jaw, I opted for Mute bunny so as to not ruin it for the believers, and I was more like Helen Keller in this costume than I thought possible, so I just waved and patted at the hecklers while the mall cop tried to shoo them away.  And kids listen so well to mall cops.

 Now picture every one of these kids 

with a club and a taser gun.  Scary, no?

"You're NOT REAL!  I Don't BELIEVE YOU!"  Then the poking and shoving started (the kids, not me).  Sweat was pouring down my back, and I could swear my overalls were sagging.  I started to hyperventilate.  Is this how I was to die?  By asphyxiation in a full fur body suit with long floppy ears and a cute cotton ball tail with a pack of fourth graders kicking the crap out of me like a bunch of skinheads?


Then, it happened.  A kid actually stuck his hand down my overall pocket and started groping around, saying, "You got any candy in there, bunny?"  

That.  Just.  Did it.

"ENOUGH!"  I growled through my enormously disproportionate head.  "You kids need to move away from the Easter Bunny RIGHT! NOW!"  

 Don't.  F*ck.  With.  My.  Pocket.

I stood in my most threatening costumed fantasy creature pose, pastel overalls trembling, sweat pooling in my pants.  I now looked like the rabid Tourettes bunny who had just wet himself.  "You kids had better move along," the mall security guard said quietly and slowly.  The kids went eerily silent, and walked away.  "Um, are you okay in there Julie?"  

"Just get me back to the mall, Bob.  I need to get back to the mall."


The Easter Bunny left a little early, soaked in her own sweat and feeling violated.  She can't remember much from the rest of the day, except that it involved tequila to dull the burning rage she had toward grade schoolers.  I'm not going to say that's the last time I got into a costume, but I will tell you it's the last time I got in one without a sidearm.

As for those kids who touched me?  Let's just say I still have the costume, and the Easter Bunny makes a visit to their houses every damn year.  Bock bock, Easter Bunny.  Bock, bock.