When Faeries Cry

I stumbled from my warm bed just before dawn and slipped on the clothes I laid out five hours earlier. Trudy looked at me like I was insane. Why would anyone be up at this ungodly hour?

The answer is simple: I had to get my parade on.

Every year, I volutneer for my friend Keith, who has a balloon in the Thanksgiving Parade downtown. And every year, I go, despite the cold and general lack of organization. People always ask why I subject myself to this -- if you're cold and miserable, they ask, why not sleep in? Why not indeed? The reason I put myself through this is because every year, something just cool enough, just out-of-the-ordinary enough happens to make it worthwhile.

Enter the faeries.

We were light on volunteers this year. Instead of 20 of us huddled together for warmth like a herd of sheep, there was only 12 or so, and that's not enough to carry a baloon. Those things are mighty big. How big, you ask? Well, as I walked up to the staging area I watched one balloon float away. An organizer tried grabbing it - without wearing gloves - and he cut his hand to the bone. Heavy AND dangerous.

So anyway, short on volunteers. Next to us was a large group of renaissance fair enthusiasts - there were kings; there were pirates; there were faeries. So after some discussion, they sent the faeries over to us.

Keith now ran a group consisting of the much-coveted 30-something-semi-alcoholic-yuppies and the under-21-faeries. Interesting combination.

Our crew took to their ropes, where we discovered that there weren't enough ropes on the balloon - a big elf, and they were all on the backside. Oh, and the balloon had a slow leak. As we began walking, our elf looked kind of limp, like he'd just come back from a wild night of partying with Dasher and Blitzen.

But before that, we waited. And waited. And waited. Our balloon was at the end of the parade. So all of the balloons at the end stood in line waiting. I froze. The faeries froze and huddled together. The pirates appeared to be getting restless - one liberated a fallen cotton candy and distributed it to her fellow pirates. Finally, our part of the parade started. Well, not really.

Due to the aforementioned problems, the elf just couldn't get it together, and our professional, who set up the balloon - incorrectly I might add - took the time-honored route of blaming everyone else for his mistakes. So halfway through the parade route, he started screaming.

And that's when he made the faerie cry.

Imagine you're a teenage girl (no, it's not something I do regularly), you're dressed in a pretty light costume, it's cold, you don't really know what you're doing, and some jackass starts yelling at you. Me? I'd hand him the rope and go home (or hit him with an empty whiskey bottle), but she stuck it out and was upset. And I don't blame her. The whole thing was a joke. The lone pirate with us comforted her and calmed her down.

That's when they gave me the golf cart.

One of the parade organizers drove up and asked if I'd mind driving it alongside the balloon for the rest of the parade while he straightened things out. So I hopped in and drove the last half of the parade route. One of my fellow parade-walkers hopped on the back and shouted instructions and encouragement through her bullhorn while I drove along.

Finally, the parade ended. Our "professional" threw a temper tantrum at the end of the route. While I generally don't wish this on anyone, I hope he gets fired. There was no need for that. Some of us who had done this before went around to the faeries and thanked them, telling them they did a good job.

And I hope they come back; they seemed like nice people and they wanted to have fun - not be screamed at by some dipshit.

In any case, I returned to my car, drove home, cleaned up and enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving with the family, which I hope everyone else did as well.