ANOTHER BONEHEAD BACKSTORY!

There was a time, long, long ago, before I became the diversified multi-tasking Bonehead that I am today that I lived a simple existence, toiling away on the front lines as a manager of men. Well, men, women, and primarily pimply faced teenagers , I managed a McDonald’s Restaurant. And with that lofty position, I gathered a veritable wealth of stories – this is one of them. Lucky you.

I worked for a local franchisee with twenty or so restaurants in the group. I was the GM at one of the eastern Long Island restaurants. Being a long way from the main office we didn’t have to worry so much about the owner or supervisors popping in all that often, so we’d occasionally take some liberties with a few policies. Nothing like serving chili or our own version of special sauce or anything like that, however, the company did store the “Grimace” costume in our basement, so we tended to use it liberally.

What’s a Grimace? Well, other than a pained frown, it’s the purple monstrosity that sort of resembles the offspring that might result should Barney the Dinosaur fuck a rhino. It’s one of the secondary McDonald’s mascot characters, who is supposed to be the gentle purple turd pile that all the children love. Let me state this from experience, this ugly thing has frightened the bejeesus  out of small children for nearly 40 years, and will probably continue to do so for many more.

You see the company was, and no doubt still is, very protective of their characters and how they’re used. Technically, the mascots are a marketing tool, and they’re supposed to only make “appearances” scheduled to drive traffic into otherwise slow days in the restaurants. We figured we had the Grimace costume so we’d use it all the time. Usually on a Saturday – we’d select one crew member to step into the very large, hot costume and frolic about the restaurant and its grounds for the amusement of the children, and their parents.

Being a big fan of nepotism, I had hired my sister at the restaurant, and since she liked being purple anyway, I often had her dress as the bulbous pointy headed monster. She seemed to enjoy it immensely. Well, one Saturday – she had to take the day off to get her hair dyed bright red, and none of the other kids wanted to get into the costume, it was the summer and it would be pretty warm in there. It turned out to be a fairly slow day, and I was getting bored arranging the pickles in size order – so I figured I’d jump into the costume and run around scaring the little brats…I mean, provide some fun and laughter for the children. Bad move.

“Where’s that dickhead manager?” He bellowed between chomps on his cheap cigar and spitting tobacco residue into his left breast pocket.

We’d been having difficulty with our trash collectors. Seems this particular driver only ran this route on Saturday’s – our busiest day and was pissed because I wouldn’t block off valuable parking spaces so he could more easily maneuver his troll-like arms around the huge trucks steering wheel to line up the vehicle to grab the dumpster. It wasn’t a very big lot and I didn’t want customers driving next door to Burger King because we didn’t have an open parking space, that’s me, always a company man.

He’d yelled at me many times before, even once threatened me with an ax handle, or maybe it was a shotgun – I couldn’t make it out through the filthy windshield he was behind, shaking it at me. Always threatened not to collect the trash – but took it anyway, so I sort of chalked him up to being a blowhard. I mean, who worries if someone in the sanitation business  is pissed at you anyway? Besides, I was 22 years old and dressed in a snappy short sleeve polyester shirt and tie with little golden arches on it. Nobody was gonna fuck with Bonehead.

The startled kid behind the counter didn’t quite know how to respond.

“Is he here or is he hiding?” The sanitation engineer bellowed.

Of course I heard all of this, so I instinctively started heading towards the commotion.

“Tell your chicken shit manager to get those cars away from the dumpster or I’m not emptying it”

Well, before you could say two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun, I pounced. Literally, take a look at the costume and its grotesquely huge feet, I had no choice. I forgot I was in the costume and started yelling.

“You’ll take that garbage you fucking asshole, or you can tell your boss to shove his bill up his fucking ass” or something along those lines is what I shouted, forgetting of course that playing the part of a McDonald’s costumed character is like a Disney costumed character…no talking, ever, just wave and shake up and down to feign laughter, point occasionally.

He realized quickly that it was me inside the costume and immediately engaged me in a discourse about what I could do to myself should I so choose and at exactly what depth I would be buried after he killed my purple ass. My retort offered a few suggestions on how he and his mom might enjoy some quiet time together.

Normally, my preference is to look someone in the eye with a statement such as that, however, the suit did not allow one to simply remove the head, it was one piece with leggings attached to the humungous feet, you had to unzip the back and step out of it. Remember, it was summer, and it was hot – and I had only my underoos  on beneath the costume. Trust me, the children in the restaurant were already traumatized enough, no need to ensure all of them a lifetime of therapy exposing them to that, so I continued to f-bomb the prick garbage man as I chased him out of the restaurant.

Out in the lot, the two or three cars that had been parked in front of the trash area had pulled away. I think I recall seeing tire marks on the ground, evidence that they all no doubt sped away as quickly as possible not wanting to play witness to the plundering of the beloved Grimace.

The belligerent trash man got in his smelly truck and did, after all that, empty the dumpster, but he let it smash loudly on the ground to vent some of his anger while I stood by watching, with my fuzzy purple arms folded defiantly across my fuzzy purple chest.

As he pulled back then sped away dangerously close, he flipped an angry bird, and an empty soda bottle at me. Knowing that I would be unable to maneuver my fuzzy purple fingers into the universal sign for fuck you, I offered the Glectic High Sign – rubbing the back of my fingers below my imaginary chin in a show of Sicilian amore.

And I kept offering my love as he drove recklessly out of the parking lot.

Just as the owner of the restaurant and his two lovely daughters  were pulling into the lot.

Until just now, my sister never knew why she was never allowed back into the restaurant.