Attack of the Killer Gingerbread Men

Or to keep things more precise...gingerbread women and men. (Must be politically correct, after all).

A week or so ago, my daughter drops me one of her typically and aggravatingly information-withholding texts: You'll never believe what I got talked into doing as a civic-minded citizen.

WHAT, WHAT, WHAT??? I clumsily texted back (Tap, tap, tap, crap! Start over...tap, tap, tap, crap!...Tap...).

I'm going to run down Main Street in a giant inflatable gingerbread man suit, she responded.

Huh. My daughter sure gets caught up in some squirrley shenanigans (her words). But there was no way in hell I was going to miss it.

Apparently, her small town had planned a Christmas celebration in downtown and as an up-and-coming town shaker and mover, my daughter was chosen to be a participant in a gingerbread man race down Main Street.

So the big day came and my daughter sorely regretted agreeing to do it. Particularly with the new information she had recently heard: she'd be racing against a couple of physically fit marathon runners. She (like me), on the other hand, had put her running days behind her sometime around...oh, I dunno, childhood. She didn't even own tennis shoes.

Race day arrived. My daughter's apprehension grew. As did my chuckling. A half an hour before the big event, I drove her downtown where the sidewalks and street were fairly abandoned. Except for a suspiciously derelict Santa hanging out in an alley in front of a Charlie Brown tree for photo op purposes with unsuspecting kids. ("Aieeeeee! Mommy, Santa smells funny!")

I said to my daughter, "Wow, there's practically nobody here. What a shame."

"Good," she said.

 After I dropped her off, I parked and hung out until the Big Race.

The sight of the cookies taking a practice walk down Main Street was the stuff of nightmares. Six large, lumbering cookie people bouncing their way toward me. Surely this was an image ripped from the headlines of Hell.

The cookies lined up at the starting line. Tension mounted. Sugar dusted legs stretched. Crumbs fell. And my daughter's costume kept deflating.

"On your mark...get set...GO!"

The "cookie monsters" bounded down Main Street as 23 onlookers cheered and guffawed. And...my daughter came in dead last. By a large margin.

(Old Man Note: while I got great practice footage, during the actual race, I had a senior moment and filmed the pavement somehow.)

I left, got inside my car. A few minutes later, my daughter yanks open the passenger door and says, "Get me outta here. Now."

Completely mortified, I responded the only way a caring father could: by giggling non-stop.

Let this be a lesson to all of you civic-minded people. It's just not worth it.

While on the topic of horrifying creatures running rampant through the city, there are quite a few beasts, varmints, monsters, and unspeakable things on the loose in my short story collection, Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley. You've been warned! Remember the gingerbread people! Brrrrrrrr...