“It could be a pork hot dog,” Grandma said.
“That’s true,” Lula said. “A pork hot dog’s pretty close to a rib. It’s
sort of like a ground-up rib.”
She held the suit up. It looked to be about six feet from top to bottom. The hot dog was in a padded bun and was enhanced with a stripe of yellow mustard.
“It’s a real colorful costume,” Grandma said. “I wouldn’t mind wearing it, but then no one would know who I was when I was on television.”
That sounded like a good deal to me. “I’ll wear it,” I said.
There were holes in the bottom where my legs could stick out, armholes in the sides of the bun, and part of the hot dog was made of mesh, so I could sort of see. I got the thing on, and Grandma zipped me up.
“This is disappointing,” Lula said. “It’s not as good as Mister Clucky.”
“She’s got a saggy bun,” Grandma said.
Connie squished my bun. “It’s foam. It needs reshaping.”
Everyone worked on the bun while I stood there.
“It’s hot in this thing,” I said. “And I can’t see through the hot dog skin. Everything’s brown. And there’s only a little window to look through.”
“I can’t hardly hear what you’re saying through all that padding,” Grandma said. “But don’t worry, we got you looking pretty good.”
“Yeah,” Lula said. “Dance around. Let’s see what you got.”
“What kind of dance?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. Any kind of dance.”
I jumped around a little and fell over.
“This is top-heavy,” I said.
“It don’t look top-heavy,” Lula said. “It’s all one size top to bottom. Imagine if we got a pork chop instead of a hot dog.”
I was on my back, and all I saw was brown sky. I rolled side to side, trying to flip over. No luck. I was stuck in the stupid bun. I flopped around, flailing my arms and kicking my feet. I got some decent momentum going rocking back and forth in my bun, but in the end, it didn’t get me anywhere.
Lula looked down at me. “Stop clownin’ around. You’re scarin’ the kids. You’re even creepin’ out the big people. It’s like someone threw away a giant twitching hot dog.”
“I can’t get up!”
“What?”
“I can’t fucking get up. What part of that don’t you understand?”
“Well, you should have said so instead of just layin’ there thrashin’ around.”
Connie and Lula grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet.
“This might not be a good idea,” I told them. “This suit is unwieldy.”
“You just gotta get used to it,” Lula said. “I bet Al Roker will be here any minute. Anybody seen Al Roker?”
Some people stopped to look at me.
“What is it?” a man asked.