Amusement

Part 3: Dizzy Fuzzy Bubby

Part 3:

"Dizzy Fuzzy Bubby"

________

A short time later, Sammy reopened his eyes to find himself staring at the sun-washed midway through a pair of tiny eyeholes. As he attempted to bring his surroundings into clearer focus, kids cheerfully ran up to him and pawed at his carpeted body. Their "oohs" and "ahs" raised the actual hairs on the back of his neck. Along with the gross lack of preparation he had received for this assignment, he also lacked any training manuals that related to the average Happy Fun Land clientele, and he stood there uncertain of whether he should keep standing there.

     How did one relate to children again? Were these people even considered children, or were they just marketing subjects? Did he want to aid in their hopeless delight and the consequences that might follow them into the dark of night?

     He searched his memories for his own childhood, hoping to connect with this demographic, but somehow his thoughts were lost in a haze of mental snapshots, of briefcases and moussed hair, and of nuns armed with sharp rulers. Flashing forward to a happier time in his life, he remembered moments of joy, of thinking he was the right man for the job, a job his wife had given him, and how that job had erased the negative memories he had of childhood, but his thoughts could not stay fixed on that happy time for long. They quickly segued to his life's worst screw-up, a job poorly done thanks to that faulty seat design he hadn't fully inspected because the branding had convinced him he didn't have to. He snapped the memory out of mind.

     This wasn't the time to dwell on the past. Improvisation would have to take control today. He had done it once before when he had to speak at a conference of Japanese investors without a translator, and somehow he had still gotten the message across, and the marketing contract. The same could happen here. Reluctantly, he opened his arms akimbo and let the young children give him hugs while keeping his focus on all the obsessively smiling people passing in front of him. A similar strategy had worked on the Japanese businessmen all those years ago.

     "I love you, Bubby," cried the chorus of children hanging from his arms. Having so many kids embracing him didn't seem right. But the past was the past and this was business.

     While his head continued to do laps around his neck, Sammy tuned out their squeaky voices and took step after step away from the souvenir shop, hoping to find a spot where his fans could be more manageable. He scanned the area for a bench where no one was sitting or a trash can that wasn't already overflowing with discarded food bags that he could lean against. All he could see through his narrow eye slits, however, were the park's vast concourse and the sea of visiting zombies and their stupid, ugly fake cat ears.

     This was not working out well. The flood of children was swallowing him. He tried to flick a few of the tykes away, gently, but they kept coming back in bigger droves. When he managed to get about twenty feet down the walk, the children happily jumped on his shoulders and brought him down to his knees. Rather than trying to fruitlessly wrestle with them, Sammy went limp and allowed them to roll him around. Sometimes improvisation required a little extra injury.

     After a few moments of abuse from the kids, Sammy regained his strength and attempted to rise from the ground.

     "Okay," he said, feeling another bout of dizziness coming against him, "time to get off me." He thought about using a "fuzzy" voice to authenticate the character, but decided against it when he realized how typical that would have made him. So, he just spoke to them in his regular, acidic voice. They didn't seem to notice the difference.