Thursday, November 24, 2005

moved by mascots

seeing mickey mouse at the magnificent mile lights festival last saturday was a thrill, to put it simply – partly because it was amazing that we had a good view, in spite of the 4 trillion chicago peeps who were also out that night, and partly because it felt like Christmas already.

but mostly because i get emotional around cuteness. and i don't mean orlandobloom-type cuteness. but then again ...

back to the issue at hand.

i remember when we took juancho (then still speech-free) to the mall so he could see elmo and some other sesame street characters. it was a long wait, but we were patient and stayed for what seemed like a very long time, especially for the one actually CARRYING juanch, who then weighed more than the legal limit of infant weight.

suddenly we saw him. elmo. waving from the third floor.

at that time, i felt an inexplicable but inevitable feeling growing inside my chest (no, it wasn't phlegm), and my tears started flowing.

of course, my younger sister (also an adult, technically) who was right beside me was crying too. "it's elmo!" we whispered reverently, in a tone that should be reserved for the second coming.

(incidentally, juancho cried too, but i suspect it was related to hunger.)

this kind of phenomenon has no explanation. in the same way that you cannot explain why fully grown people converge at a parade to wave wildly and scream at a mascot, as though they were really seeing goofy or donald duck or mickey.

it's crazy. especially because everyone knows the real mickey is in anaheim.

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