¨Why do I do this to myself?¨ 

I panted in my boiling furnace. I couldn’t see straight, I looked out of the right eye of the mascot suit – it’s the only one not fogged up by my glasses which I forgot to take off.  It’s eighty-some degrees out, but in the suit, it felt like a hundred. It is the fourth day of school, and we had a pep rally outside. Why outside on the hottest day of the week, I have no clue. I was not prepared to be outside in a heavy suit walking around, making a fool out of myself, in front of unenthusiastic students. My khakis were wet and my undershirt was soaked. 

The two other guys didn’t want to do it, (don’t blame 'em), so they pulled me out of 4th period telling me, ¨You’re the Ram.¨  My Design Tech teacher, Mrs. Majeed, was perplexed, but let me leave. 

I stopped reminiscing back when I was nice and cold in Mrs.Majeed’s room and stepped onto the bleachers, my footfalls were heavier than usual due to the fur suit, and I haven’t had a drink of water in hours, I’m going to be so mad if I pass out. A teacher yelled at me ¨Why aren’t you pumping these kids up¨, if only I could scream ¨If you want them pumped up so bad, you do it¨, but I suppressed my anger and just shrugged.  

Looking back on how I started this extracurricular. It was a year ago, at a football game. I don’t understand anything that is happening in the game, but I understood one thing, we are losing… by a lot. There are no cheerleaders, but that doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that I don’t see a mascot. I wondered if the student who normally did the mascot was out that day, or maybe we just didn’t have one, and then I thought, “I could do that”

 We lost the game, but where others felt bad, I felt over the moon with excitement, imagining the possibility of being the mascot. I sent an email to Mr.Dick, the athletic director stating that I should be the school mascot because ¨I have a lot of pep, love Dickinson, have a lot of school spirit, and love the attention.¨ A day later, bored out of my mind in Spanish class, I checked my email. To my surprise, I saw a response from him saying, ¨Sounds like a good idea. We can talk about it on Friday.¨ 

On Friday I met him in his office and he said that I can be the new mascot and that our next home game is next week. I practically ran home jumping up and down the whole way as I bound through the door. I say, ``I did it!”. Although It may have been slightly louder than I should have. My father was on a work call, so after being reprimanded by my mother, she congratulated me on my success. I told all of my friends and they thought it was pretty cool.  

A week later, I showed up at the school after hours, holding a bottle of Gatorade and not wearing my glasses. I walked, and the footsteps echoed off the silent halls, I knocked on the door to Mr.Dick’s office. My heart was racing so fast, I could see it, the mascot suit which I idolized for so long. It was so close to my grasp. Then I realized Mr.Dick’s office light was off, so I had to run and find him. I found him and suited up for the night. The prior cold night turned into a sauna inside the ram suit. Its head was big but I couldn’t see straight, only moving diagonally to see out the left or right eye. It was hard to move at first but walking around the gym twice really helped me gain my balance and master movement. To be honest I must have looked like a crazy person to whoever passed by. “Hard to walk, but I just have to get my sea legs,” I thought to myself. I had a friend in the gym with me to help me out during the night, walking me through the parking lot and getting me water. When this friend escorted me through the parking lot, he followed me around the rest of the night, grabbed me water, and escorted me to the spot under the bleachers where I could take off the ram head in peace. Surrounded by football fans. I saw several people I recognized and somehow they recognized me, maybe because they found out from the friends I told. I felt very happy, for the first time ever at a football game. A little girl ran up and just hugged me, I couldn’t see her, due to the limited visibility but I heard her laughter and it made my soul feel all warm and fuzzy. Time moved slowly as I progressively got hotter and hotter, I saw that the clock read only the second quarter, and my wish to die came to fruition. So many people wanted pictures, families, and students who wanted close-ups with Barney the Ram. I remember clearly one child who was terrified of the ram. I never understood until I saw my shadow. I was a big human-looking goat man with horns and my shadow made me look like the devil. It was quite fun and when asked if I would do it again, I gave a hearty “Absolutely” and proceeded to leave the school with a new favorite extracurricular activity.

I snap back to reality when I hear someone talking to the ram. It’s a teacher, I’ve only had two classes with her, so it takes me a second, ¨, Oh, It’s Mrs.Zerbe¨ I think to myself. I can’t remember exactly what she said, but it was something to the effect of ¨I appreciate what you’re doing.¨ I think to myself ¨Awwwwwwwwwww,¨ as if this were an 80’s sitcom.  ¨Do I know you?¨ Mrs.Zerbe asks. I had no clue if she expected me to speak but I just nodded to signify that she does in fact know me. I continued to walk around in the hot sun until finally, the pep rally ended, and I could finally get out and breathe air that wasn’t hot and humid. I breathed a sigh of relief as my torture ended. ¨Are you going to do it again? Mr.Dick asks.

¨Absolutely!¨ I say heartily because despite my annoyances and complaining, this was my favorite extracurricular and something that not many people can say they’ve done.