Project: Guinea Pig

There is a writer for Slate Magazine/Slate.com named Emily Yoffe who used to write a column called Human Guinea Pig, where she "embarrassed herself for fun and profit." She would do things that you'd always wondered about, but never really had the guts to do for yourself. She was a Nude Model, a Telephone Pyschic, the Washington someteams Mascot, a Mime, worked on a oil rig, all kinds of things.

Very talented, very gutsy woman.

As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Well, I'm not imitating her. I completely ripped off her idea. I even kind-of stole the name of her column. Bad Inyanna. Bad. Anyway, I'm enrolled in newspaper practicum, which requires that I write a column for the paper. Since I was such a fan of her column, and every other idea I had was taken, my professor and I decided to steal her idea.

A few weeks ago, I went out and spent the day working with a nice man named Derald Brown, City of Hickville's street sweeper. I got to drive, and refill the water, and sweep the streets. In a few weeks, I'll be riding with a police officer, and then I'll be teaching a freshman seminar class.

Yesterday, however, I was Rowdy Ranger, the mascot for my university, at our football game against the Warriors. A giant fiberglass head, a leather vest, leather chaps, black jeans, and a white button-down is all it takes.

It is impossible to see out of a fiberglass head. There is no airflow. You aren't allowed to talk, and even it you do, no one can understand you through the head. You can't take off the head, so you can't take a drink. You can't see the game, so you have to take cues from the cheerleaders and the band as to what you should be doing. And you must constantly be in motion, running and waving and dancing and generally entertaining people. But, I did get my very own personal assistant to walk with me, because you can't see. And, children consider it perfectly acceptable to kick and punch you, because you're not a real person.

There are also two reactions children have to you. They either love you, and want to take a picture and touch you and try on your stuff and lift up your head to see who you are--- Or they're TERRIFIED of you, and run screaming the other way, which parents find hilarious. They will actually pick up the screaming child and carry them to you, just to get a better reaction.

Speaking of grown-ups, one piece of advice. It is simply not acceptable to try and steal the mascot's head to see who's under there.

Even if the mascot has suddenly, overnight, grown boobs.