Let It Go

Our lives were carrying on all normal and stuff...which is to say we were semi-successfully keeping our crazy away from the general public...and then Ron read me a text from one of his co-workers: "Your wife should be a princess."

Hellooo. Obvi. I didn't even need to know the context behind the statement.

Then he explained that they needed someone to be Elsa on their company float for the Christmas parade. I mean, of course I'll do it because it's basically what I've been training for my entire life, but I had some questions.
1. Will a costume be provided?
2. Are we going minimum or maximum cleavage?
3. Will I wear a wig or are we taking this in a new direction and introducing Badass Brunette Elsa to the community?

I'm fine with whatever y'all decide because I don't micromanage.

A few days later, he answered my questions. A costume will be provided. No wig necessary, because it's a bobble head Elsa.

Soooo. Follow up question. what the hell is a bobble head Elsa? He answered, "I don't know, but she said it's hideous."

I didn't know who "she" was and quite frankly, it didn't matter. Hideous? I'm gonna make my princess debut as a hideous Elsa?

But I'd already agreed to it, so I'd do it, and just be grateful that no one would know who was under the bobble head. And this was no longer my official princess debut, just so we're clear.

Fast forward to the morning of the parade when one of my Zumba friends asked me what I was doing that weekend and I reluctantly told her about the parade and hideous bobble head Elsa. And then she changed the course of my day...and maybe my life...by telling me her daughter-in-law has a real Elsa costume that I could borrow, complete with wig. Also a fur cover for warmth which meant zero cleavage, but beggars can't be choosers, am I right?

And so began the rush to prepare. Watching Elsa eye make-up youtube tutorials while I awkwardly tried to follow along, finding out I needed false eyelashes, so a mad dash to the local Family Dollar, and then attempting to follow the step by step instructions before quickly coming to the realization that applying false eyelashes falls under the category of 'crafts' so profanity entered the picture.

No princess is perfect.

Finally, I picked up the costume, came back home, carefully put on the wig...and then waited for my client to arrive because I'm a massage therapist and I had no reason to think I should cancel an appointment, because believe it or not, becoming Elsa- Ice Princess, wasn't originally on my to-do list that day. So yeah. A guy got massaged by Elsa, whether he liked it or not, and I'd just as soon not know whether he liked it or not.

It can't get any more embarrassing than that, right?
Hold my wig.

No sooner had I completed his massage, I heard honking outside. I looked out to see the UPS truck parked at the end of our long driveway surrounded by our dogs barking at him while he leaned out the door motioning for me to come to him to get my package. Please, God, no. That hideous bobble head was sounding pretty good as he witnessed Elsa- Ice Princess running barefoot down the driveway while he didn't even try to hide the look on his face. When I offered up a quick out-of-breath explanation, he interrupted me with, "It's cool. I don't need to know."

Well, good, cuz I didn't want to tell you anyway. Now if you could please quickly drive away before you see the guy come out of my house and pay me, that'd be best for everyone involved.

So it can't get more embarrassing than that, right?
You should probably stop asking. We're just gettin' started.

Now it's time to go pick up my grandson from preschool, because we're heading straight to the parade from there. The Pre-school pick-up policy is that you park at the front of the loooong line of cars and when the preschool teacher brings out the little ones, she'll wait until the adult gets out of their vehicle and approaches so that she knows who the child is going home with.

So where do we begin with all the potential problems here?

Elsa stepping out of a mini-van in front of a parking lot full of witnesses, thus landing me on youtube somewhere. Again. The potential mob as little girls realize that Elsa is on the property at the peak of the release of Frozen 2. The possibility that my grandson won't recognize me, clings to his teacher when I tell him to get in the van, and the authorities become involved. Because if Ace doesn't recognize me, there's no hope Miss Becky will.

So I did what I thought was best. I stayed hidden in my van, gambling on the fact that Ace will recognize my van, and if Miss Becky ever wanted to go home, she'd have no choice but to bring him to me. And that's eventually exactly what happened. And when the van door slid open I saw it register on both of their faces that Sassy was Elsa and Elsa was Sassy. Miss Becky laughed and laughed. Ace, on the other hand, was not amused in any way and as we drove away, he asked, "Sassy, can you please not do that anymore?"

Poor little guy. Only been around for 5 years, so he really has no idea what he's in for.

On the way to the parade, I felt Caymen staring at me. I turned to her and in my most charming Disney princess voice, snapped, "WHAT???" She jumped and then hesitantly said, "You know Elsa's white like snow, right? You're more...bronze...like sand." I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror. "So what's wrong with a tan Elsa? I'm a healthier beachy-er Vitamin D Elsa, which doesn't justify your disapproving face here."

When we arrived at the warehouse where the float was being decorated, things got awkward.
Wait, you thought things were already awkward? Are you new here or something?

I walked in to the crowded warehouse in full-on Italian Elsa, to the appalled looks of everyone, mainly my husband. That's when I was informed that I was going to be required to wear the bobble head. Why? Because Elsa had to match Anna and Olaf, who were also wearing bobble heads. Which only goes to show that not everyone was as fully invested in this as I was.

Sooo...you wanna make Elsa mad...have you even seen the movie?
Before I could begin freezing things with my fake-lashed ice glares, Ron pulled me aside and whispered, "No one asked you to do...*pauses and looks me up and down*...this."
Well then let me refresh your memory. HIDEOUS. So, THIS, should be self-explanatory.

I'll spare you the details of the angry whispered conversation, and maybe a few tears. (Wasn't my fault he cried, either.) I wore the bobble head...and stood on the top of a float pulled behind a truck being driven by Ron, which means bobble head Elsa, who couldn't see a damn thing out of her bobble head face, was but one hard brake away from tumbling to an embarrassing death in a Christmas parade at the hands of her own husband. A fitting end to the story, if you ask me. But the only bad thing that happened was getting frostbite in my hand. We'll just chalk that up to staying in character because going above and beyond is what I do. Obvi.

To be perfectly fair, the bobble head wasn't really hideous...I mean, for a bobble head...and in retrospect, maybe bobble head Elsa was more believable than The Soprano's Elsa, and probably slightly less scary.

The bottom line is, all good came from this entire saga, despite my husband's feelings on the matter. Or my grandson's. My client. The UPS guy. Okay, mostly good came from this entire saga. I got a picture on a float with two of my grandkids aaaaand twelve hours after posting that picture on my facebook page, I got a message from one of our pastors: 'Shari- How are you at acting?' Funny you should ask...

Guess who's The Virgin Mary in our church's Christmas Eve Eve Service? They said they'd provide the costume. Ron thinks I should go ahead and let them do that.

Give me some credit. I'm not gonna go rogue with the Virgin Mary costume. Unless of course it's hideous.