Snappity Chats and Custodial Hats

This is the story of the time I lost my super cute Custodial baseball cap. Now, this cap is my absolute favorite part of my costume. It's a maroon baseball cap, and it has a tiny image of the bossmouse using a push broom. A simple design, really, but oh so effective. Nothing says 'adorable' like Mickey Mouse and a ponytail through the back of a ball cap! Safe to say, within hours of receiving the hat I was already wondering how much money I would have to pay  costuming if I "accidentally" took it home with me after my program.

Now that you know how much I cherish this thing, you can appreciate the full emotional impact of losing it.

Let's set the scene. It's a regular workday, first one of my week. I've just left the locker room, so I'm already in costume, and now I'm stuffing my pockets with the assorted junk of a custodial castmember. Company ID, gloves, nametag, pin lanyard, etc. I wasn't ready to don my hat just yet since I hadn't put my hair up. Instead, I folded it up and shoved it into my pocket with everything else.

MISTAKE NUMBER ONE

Just to make sure we are all on the same page, I'm not talking normal pockets. When I say "pockets" you probably thought I meant pockets in my shorts. If you refer to this picture of me in costume from a hundred years ago, you will see that I actually have two large pockets on the front of my "smock". Those pockets are the ones I'm talking about.

You can see my hat too! So anyways, I've got all my crap with me and I'm doing pretty good on time so I decide to use the bathroom before I walk to the office.

MISTAKE NUMBER TWO

Basically every onstage bathroom in the park has an automatic sensor that will flush the toilet for you. In theory. (The number of times I have flushed a toilet for grown women this semester proves that they are not 100% effective) However, in cast services we are still working with a manual flush most of the time. Not a problem.

So I pee. (Sorry if that is crass, I deal with a lot of bodily functions at work these days and I might be jaded) I am a decent human being so of course I then go to flush the toilet. This requires me to turn around and bend at the waist.

If you can't handle bathroom humor then you might want to read what happened next through laced fingers because it's all downhill from here.

As I reach for the handle, my beautiful hat pops out of my smocket (smock pocket) and flies kamikaze style into the bowl of the toilet.

There is nothing I can do. Nothing I can say. It was so young. I am so ashamed.

Head hanging, I fish my sad little hat out of the toilet and plop it into the costume return bin.

....And then they didn't have any replacement hats for TWO WHOLE WEEKS.

My mother has pointed out that I could have washed it, but I didn't really have anywhere to put that for the day and I was looking for an out of sight out of mind sort of deal with this particular incident.

By far the most embarrassing part of this story is the fact that this DIDN'T EVEN HAPPEN WHILE WORKING. What special brand of knuckle-head manages to keep her hat on/safely tucked away while running around cleaning restroom stalls and then drops it in a toilet  just using the bathroom?

ME

So, that's my fun story for the day. I've got some more updates brewing, so keep checking back.

See ya real soon!