How to Destroy the World with a Smokey Bear Costume

Many times, in my job, I do really awesome things. Sometimes, frankly, I do really boring things. And sometimes, I do ridiculous things.

Wearing the Smokey Bear costume is one of those ridiculous things.

Ridiculous, according to Mr. Webster, means "deserving or inviting mockery". Now, let me say this: all Forest Service employees should wear the Smokey suit at least once. It is an experience not to be missed when given the opportunity. Unfortunately, for people sized about 5'5" and 135 pounds, wearing the Smokey suit is not only an unmissable opportunity, it is a ridiculous endeavor, because a "small (read: not huge)" person in a Smokey suit begs for mockery. Let me illustrate with a case study: my own.

For part of my job, I am asked to help the wildfire crews teach first and second graders in local schools about fire safety and the whole "stop, drop, and roll" deal. For part of it, each fire team member takes a group of 3 to 7 kids into a corner and teaches them that Smokey's friends never play with matches and what to do if they find matches. Or, if they're second graders, we go over "stop, drop and roll" with them. Then, if we successfully squash their stories about EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY'VE EVER SEEN FIRE and their questions of "why do you lie to us and tell us Smokey's real when he's just a person in a costume?", Smokey Bear and Sparky Dog come out for a little quality time.

One Friday, Maria, one of my coworkers, decided that I should be Smokey. There were six classes that afternoon, amounting to about two hours of time in the Smokey suit. Sure, I said, I'll try it once.

First, I was led into the teacher's break room. Smokey always uses a secluded back room to dress (preferably guarded by dragons and trolls with angry little knives), because if a child ever saw Smokey with his head off, it would be the end of the world. There, I was zipped into the suit, which comes in five pieces: the two fur-covered shoebox feet, the pants (extra extra large jeans), the upper body, and the head. The jeans and upper body are NOT connected. This was important, because not having a sufficiently glorious gut to hold up the jeans, I found them suddenly around my ankles right before my first class. A lot of cinching of the belt and I was ready to go.

Next, the head. Unfortunately, the mechanism that holds the giant, wire-mesh-plastic-fakefur contraption in the right place on the wearer's head was a little broken. The head sat just barely wrong, so that when I looked straight, the head faced about four degrees to the right. This actually wasn't so bad, since the eye holes to see out of were a little too high and a little too far apart for my relatively small noggin. Because of that, I had to chose an eye and tilt the head so that I could see out of that hole. I chose the left, in keeping with the natural rightward tilt of Smokey's head. This left Smokey with a slightly cynical and perhaps a little creepy sideways look when he greeted children.

The suit does not ventilate well. Because of this and the added weight, I was hot and breathing harder than normal. So hard, sometimes, that I was worried that the kids could hear me wheezing from inside the suit when I stood behind them for class pictures. And if a kid ever hears the person inside the Smokey suit make a sound, once again, the world will end. This thought probably contributed to my wheezing.

The problem with the hands: the arms were just too long for me, and my hands only reached about a third of the way into Smokey's. I kept having to scrunch up the arms like you would an oversize sweater, which just does not help an already skeptical child's belief in the "reality" of Smokey Bear. Not to mention that when I waved, the last two thirds of Smokey's hands flopped side to side lifelessly, resulting in not a few widened eyes and dropped jaws from gullible six year olds.

Like I said, being encased in two inches of fake fur is quite hot. For much of the time between classes, I sat outside the school in a chair so that I could take advantage of the occasional breeze that could snake through the mesh of the eyes and nose. This meant I sat in front of a large, tinted mirror, in which I could see my reflection. So when I waved, a jean-clad brown bear waved back. At one point, I decided that I needed to take the head off or I might suffocate. I went back to the teacher's break room where had I changed, took the head off, decided I was still too hot, and proceeded to stick my head as far into the freezer as possible. Maria saw me and snapped a picture of Smokey with his head in the freezer... I'll upload it later.

Finally, the whole point of having someone in a Smokey suit is so that the kids can give him high fives and hugs. It's the highlight of the whole thing. There is a problem, however, when Smokey can't see whether the child approaching him wants a high five or a hug. The kids get into a rhythm of hugs and high fives, so that if one kid gives a hug, an untold number of kids behind him follow suit. However, when this rhythm changes, and Smokey can't see, we end up with Smokey awkwardly holding his arms wide in preparation for a "bear hug" and a confused child standing there with his hand out for a high five. Or the opposite, and worse, scenario, in which a child comes barreling in for a hug and Smokey sticks out his hand, which then collides with the child's face and leaves her at least a little dazed, if not on the floor.

Add this last thing to the flopping lifeless hands, the cynical sideways look, the wheezing, and the pants falling down, and I think you can sufficiently call my experience in the Smokey suit ridiculous.

But hey, maybe one of these kids will remember the day Smokey came to school, remember the things we taught them, and one day stop a fire and indirectly or directly save a life. Even just the possibility of that makes me not care about looking ridiculous. They can't see me anyway. Not that I am a person who never looks ridiculous. I'm pretty used to it.