Thursday, June 2, 2011

Mascots, the seventh circle of hell and flashing clients.

What does a girl do when she has a Friday free? Dress up as Tony the Tiger and hang out at a Wal-Mart with the Nesquick Bunny and the Bimbo Bear. Yes, I did it. I dressed as a mascot. For the grand opening of a Wal-Mart. Why, you ask? Why not? I didn't at that exact time, have anything else going on. And no, there was no fighting among the mascots. A) Everyone is a professional; and B) those costumes are H-O-T. I thought I was going to faint going into my first 20 minutes. Extra unnecessary movement is ill-advised and just plain crazy.

All you folks who work the theme parks in the middle of summer in costume, I salute you. And you scare me. It can be a little claustrophobic in there. Word of advice (to myself): cooling vest. Seriously. I was glad to do it, though. Seriously. Would I again? I don't know. Every decision as the situation arises. It's still a job and thankfully, I wasn't outside. Whew.

It's been a delightfully busy month and yes I count wearing a mascot costume in there. A commercial, mascot public appearance, a PSA and the doing good for the soldiers. I'd say all in all a pretty good month. Now if I can just keep that ball rolling.

I drove from sweaty mascot job to a callback (and booked it thankyouverymuch) where the client WANTED me present. That's a super cool feeling. It's definitely awesome to have a client specifically ask for me (insert ginormous, crap-eating grin here).

However, on the filming day, it only struck me about midway through that some folks might consider the position the cast and crew were in one of the seven circles of hell. Now, that is in no way to say that the day was anything but great. For real, again, I was overjoyed to be there and everyone was wonderful. But just imagine nine women in a baby shower setting laughing, cooing and saying the same lines over and over and over and over and over and over again for an entire work day. If there was anyone in the crew who just wanted to stab themselves in the ears, I wouldn't have blamed them, but they never let on if the impulse was there.

It wasn't really until the last hour that I started to feel loopy. I flubbed my lines in English and Spanish – totally forgetting the word “air filter”. Even after almost 8 hours of saying “air filter.” I thought I was going to cry because at that stage, EVERYONE wants to wrap up and every flub is more time hearing “ahahahahhahahhahahahhaha ooooooooooooohhhhh” from 8-9 women at a time. Imagine that as your eternal damnation. Ahahhahhahhahhahahhahha. And I would do it again. In a heart beat.

I got to work with some lovely ladies and the comeraderie was awesome. We were in it together. Every laugh, every repeated phrase, every fanning of sweaty parts. Which leads me back to my loopiness that resulted in my slight wardrobe malfunction.

Of course I would do this when the camera is pointed at me, not when it was over my shoulder or off to one of the sides, no, when it was DIRECTLY IN FRONT of me. Pointing in my direction. The AC was off and for those who aren't in film, ACs make a lot of noise that boom mics pick up, so film sets generally have no running AC while filming with sound is being done. I was wearing a skirt (you see where this is going don't you) and in absent-minded gesture, I quickly flapped my skirt up from my lap to fan my legs. Just once. I can still feign being a lady. Dammit.

A few moments later a voice pops in my ear and I hear, “Everyone, all the clients, in the other room saw your panties on the monitor when you flipped your skirt up.” And time stood still ... for. just. one. mortifying. moment ... I stopped breathing ... I felt my eyes turn to saucers ... my heart fell into my stomach ... and my stomach fell into my feet. I wanted to scream, then cry, then run away. Then I thought, “oh well. Can't take it back. And it's panties. Everyone has seen panties. And it's not like I flashed my whole undercarriage. My knees were still together – I think. Oh boy, I hope. Ugh. Stomach in feet again.

However, I know it was not recorded. Small favors, right? Whew.

Hey, they called me back to audition for their next PSA the following week. :-)

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