Bear suit!
Nov. 16th, 2011 08:00 amYesterday was a strange, strange day...It's gotten much colder out, so we've been getting more of our share of crazy at the Mines recently. We've gotten so many problem crazies that I've been making flash-cards, so the guards can tell who's who and what they may try to do. (For example, Crazy #4 harasses women in the gift shop, while Crazy #7 harasses male guards in the smoking areas. Stuff like that.)
Usually there's some inventive clothing as well...one of my all-time favorites is Drunken Dumbledore, who likes to come in wearing natty sixties suits with bell-bottoms and big ties, some kind of headband, and occasionally a towel that's doubling as a cape. He keeps trying to smuggle bottles of vodka into the galleries. But other people come in with the occasional sartorial splendor, like the Indiana Jones impersonator complete with small toy whip, or the tall mustachioed fellow in the blue sequined cocktail gown with the heels and great legs. Also, we have a very nice performance artist in, walking very very slowly in a gorgeous, undulating blue robe that looks like it would be so soft to touch...
But yesterday! Yesterday takes the cake...because we had a man come in wearing a bear suit. With a ukelele. There were some kinds of photos pinned to his bear-suit, that nobody could make out very well. Also, close-up viewers were pretty sure the guy only had one arm. I saw him from afar, silhouetted by a window, and I thought,"Nice bear hat...wait, he's kinda fluffy..um, is that a ukulele in his hand?" For a moment I actually thought my poor bored brain had made the whole thing up. But the other guards were all chattering about him, and one had actually taken some blurry, Bigfoot-style photos with his cellphone..
I have no idea if we'll see the Bear Suit Man again...nobody knows his raison d'etre, but he sure made us happy while he was at the Mines. (That will change radically if he acts out and does any scenes from,"When Grizzlies Attack", but I think that's a given...)
Usually there's some inventive clothing as well...one of my all-time favorites is Drunken Dumbledore, who likes to come in wearing natty sixties suits with bell-bottoms and big ties, some kind of headband, and occasionally a towel that's doubling as a cape. He keeps trying to smuggle bottles of vodka into the galleries. But other people come in with the occasional sartorial splendor, like the Indiana Jones impersonator complete with small toy whip, or the tall mustachioed fellow in the blue sequined cocktail gown with the heels and great legs. Also, we have a very nice performance artist in, walking very very slowly in a gorgeous, undulating blue robe that looks like it would be so soft to touch...
But yesterday! Yesterday takes the cake...because we had a man come in wearing a bear suit. With a ukelele. There were some kinds of photos pinned to his bear-suit, that nobody could make out very well. Also, close-up viewers were pretty sure the guy only had one arm. I saw him from afar, silhouetted by a window, and I thought,"Nice bear hat...wait, he's kinda fluffy..um, is that a ukulele in his hand?" For a moment I actually thought my poor bored brain had made the whole thing up. But the other guards were all chattering about him, and one had actually taken some blurry, Bigfoot-style photos with his cellphone..
I have no idea if we'll see the Bear Suit Man again...nobody knows his raison d'etre, but he sure made us happy while he was at the Mines. (That will change radically if he acts out and does any scenes from,"When Grizzlies Attack", but I think that's a given...)