Look kids its Toby….#Clang#
A few weeks back I was at a christening/ birthday party for a friends kids. The two parents of the kids in question worked at Barnsley Football Club and had therefore managed to book out the executive box for the party (After the lengthy church ceremony).

The party had started, the bar was swamped with parents drinking to try and wipe out the looped soundtrack of kids songs that was playing in the background and then K the mother of the christened kids pulls me to one side. It turned out that they had managed to also get hold of the actual suit for the clubs mascot and were looking for someone to play the role of Toby Tyke to amuse the kids after they have played pass the parcel. Most of the other dads had turned it down due to the fact that they were dressed up for a fancy occasion and didn’t want to ruin their suits etc, but I was a 28 year old bloke with a mental age of 10 and I also had a kid who was an avid Barnsley fan that loves Toby Tyke.

I pretended to disappear to the loo and quickly got dressed, the gloves that he wore were misplaced so I had the option of looking like Toby had had been taking part in some form of human hand transplant or to keep my hands in the sleeves of the suit, making it look like Toby Tyke had been caught shoplifting in Iraq a few weeks ago. Then I found a problem with the doors. The head I wore was a good foot or two taller than I was so I was constantly colliding with the doorframe every time I passed through a door- this kind of dampened my entrance when K yelled out look whos here and the kids turned to see the club mascot stagger through the door after twatting my head on the entrance.

My youngest took one look at me in the suit and ran off screaming, as did a few others. Once things had calmed down I went round the braver kids, shaking hands and having my picture taken with a number of terrified little buggers forced to sit next to me (I also had a bit of interest from a couple of the mums too, who also had their photo while sat on my lap).

Eventually I was led back outside, took the suit off and returned in from my trip to the loo (Thank god the adults knew I was in the suit as the image of me popping out to the loo and returning a few minutes later sweating and looking knackered would really raise a few questions with the parents).

I know this story won’t be as good as the others that involve people saying they met Slash/Mr T/ Batman etc but I wouldn’t swap this for anything as the star struck look on my eldest sons face (the one that wasn’t scared to death of me) made me feel on top of the world (and still does when I think back to it).
(mon bison powered by magnets, Fri 17 Apr 2009, 11:29, 1 reply)

Great post!
Loved it, mate - beats Slash any fucking day.
( SpankyHanky, Fri 17 Apr 2009, 11:53, closed)