Today, I’m going to talk about how I ended up cheering for my cross-country team while dressed as a giant inflatable red dinosaur. And let me tell you, being a dinosaur is a lot harder than it looks. First of all, it’s exhausting. I know, I know. If a runner heard me complaining, they’d probably say, “At least I actually ran!” And yes, running is probably more tiring. But have you ever tried walking around inside a giant inflatable dinosaur costume? Trust me, it’s not exactly a relaxing experience.
For starters, forget about sitting down. Sitting down in an inflatable dinosaur costume is basically impossible. There’s always some little kid trying to chase your tail, and meanwhile, you feel like you’re being baked alive inside an oven. A giant red oven, to be exact. When the cross-country race started, I was ready to cheer for my teammates. The girls raced first, and there were probably around a hundred runners. You have absolutely no idea how sweaty I was. I had to climb up a hill while people kept bumping into me like I was some kind of giant pinball. I tried to fight back, but there’s not much you can do when your entire body is trapped inside a giant balloon.
Eventually, I had to deflate the costume. And here’s something nobody tells you about inflatable costumes: they look amazing when they’re inflated, but when they’re deflated, they’re absolutely terrible. Suddenly, you’re trapped inside what feels like a giant plastic bag with no air. It gets so uncomfortable that you feel like you can barely breathe. At least when the dinosaur is inflated, there’s some space inside. Another problem is that I’m not quite tall enough for the costume. I’m just a few inches away from being the perfect dinosaur height. So, if I want the dinosaur’s head to face forward properly, I have to keep adjusting my arms and pulling its head downward. Basically, I need to grow a little taller before I can become a professional dinosaur.
Anyway, while I was cheering for my teammates, things weren’t exactly going according to plan. At one point, I either tripped or tried to sit down, and the entire dinosaur collapsed onto the ground. But did I stop cheering? Absolutely not. Imagine this. You’re running a cross-country race. You’re exhausted, your legs hurt, and you’re desperately trying to reach the finish line. Then, out of nowhere, you see a giant red dinosaur lying helplessly on the ground, screaming, “YOU GUYS GOT THIS! IF I GO EXTINCT, YOU GUYS SHOULDN’T!” I think that might have been my greatest motivational speech of all time.
The problem was that every time someone ran past me, they would stare. Some people looked completely confused. One person even shouted, “What the—” followed by a word I’m not going to repeat here. Other people actually tried to chase me. I mean, come on. I’m supposed to be cheering for the runners, not becoming part of the race myself. I was also slightly worried that I might be distracting the runners. Imagine trying to focus on winning a race while a giant dinosaur is rolling around on the grass and screaming motivational speeches at you. That’s probably not something your coach prepared you for.
Luckily, I wasn’t the only ridiculous-looking creature at the race. My friend Boru was wearing a giant rat costume. Yes, a rat. So basically, we had a dinosaur and a rat cheering for the same cross-country team. Unfortunately for Boru, our coach caught him wearing the costume and told him he had to run. I, however, had a perfectly reasonable excuse. “My leg hurts.” And before you say anything, my leg actually did hurt. So I really didn’t want to run that day. Besides, someone had to take responsibility for the dinosaur department. Boru is a pretty nice guy, although he did try to mess with me a little. But honestly, if it ever came down to a dinosaur versus a rat, I think we all know who would win.
I also came up with a very important explanation for why we were there. Our school mascot is a beaver, but apparently the official beaver mascot couldn’t make it to the race. So I told everyone that I was the beaver’s great-great-great cousin. Actually, no. Uncle. I was the beaver’s great-great-great uncle. And Boru? Well, he was the rat who had been kicked out of the family tree twice. So there we were: a dinosaur and a rat, representing the Beaver cross-country team. It made absolutely no sense, but somehow, it worked.
One of the funniest parts was hearing people call me a mascot. I mean, I was just a kid walking around inside a giant inflatable dinosaur, and suddenly people were treating me like some kind of official school character. I also made sure to keep my face covered because having random people recognize me inside a dinosaur costume would be a little weird. At one point, there were people taking pictures, and a girl who looked about eighteen asked if she could take a picture with me. Apparently, she thought taking a picture with a giant red dinosaur would be cool. Honestly, fair enough. Later, someone told me she was related to some singer. I think they mentioned a name like Thomas something, but I have absolutely no idea who they were talking about. I don’t really follow singers that much, so for all I know, she could have been related to someone famous, or someone could have been making the whole thing up. Either way, I was the dinosaur in the picture, which I think was the more important part.
Now, you might be wondering: after all that sweating, climbing hills, falling over, getting chased by children, and screaming at runners, did I actually get paid? Well, yes. Sort of. At the end of the day, I discovered the snacks and drinks. And that, my friends, was when my mascot career became financially successful. There were these candies called Vultures—or something like that. I can never pronounce the name correctly, but who cares? I grabbed two packs and stuffed them inside my dinosaur costume. Then I found some Gatorades. Naturally, I took a few of those too. And then there was an entire container of soda. Now, I’m not saying that I was officially hired as a mascot or that anyone had actually agreed to pay me. But in my mind, after everything I had been through, I deserved some compensation.
So I walked away with my collection of snacks and drinks, feeling like a very successful dinosaur. I even started calculating how much everything might be worth. Maybe I could sell the whole collection on eBay for fifty bucks. Fifty dollars for being a dinosaur mascot? That sounds like a pretty good job to me. Of course, I’m not actually sure anyone would pay fifty dollars for a bunch of candy and sports drinks. But that’s not the point. The point is that I had survived an entire cross-country meet inside a giant inflatable dinosaur costume, and I had something to show for it.
Looking back, it was actually a pretty amazing day. I didn’t run the race. I didn’t win a medal. I didn’t even manage to stay standing the whole time. But I cheered for my teammates, made a bunch of people laugh, invented an extremely questionable family history involving a beaver and a rat, and possibly became the strangest mascot our school has ever seen. My only regret? I didn’t manage to get any more of those sodas. But hey, I guess you can’t have everything. And that’s the story of how I became a dinosaur mascot. If I ever go extinct, at least I’ll go extinct with some Gatorade.
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