Mr. Woofums (cover name)

As he poses for the camera.

The Brave Little Toaster and Mr. Woofums

Before we set out: Just getting a scaled picture.

Me posing with Mr. Woofums.

Check out my sweet aviators.

Mr. Woofums and Miss Woof

Another scale picture. As you can plainly see, he is quite large.

Mr. Woofums' Day Out

As soon as we stepped outside, we noticed it was raining. Fairly hard. And I'm not really one to dry-clean the dog.

Clearly, this is a good idea.

So I found an old raincoat and dressed him up in it.

Mr. Woofums

We had a little trouble with the zipper...

The Invalid

...Mr. Woofums wasn't that much help either.

Finally!

Now we were ready to set off on our adventure!

Miss Woof carries Mr. Woofums

He didn't want to walk; the past week we've had about four feet of snow (unheard of for the valley!) and then it all melted in a series of two days. I didn't want to walk either, but then again, I'm not made of deliciously soft velvet-y material. So Mr. Woofums took priority.

Unheard of!

A LOT of snow.

En Route

As we were walking, we kept getting the strangest looks from people in cars. The kids were the best, though. I'd wave Mr. Woofum's paw to them...

Smile!

...And give them a big smile.

Raining, remember?

It was raining pretty hard; The Brave Little Toaster usually held the umbrella, but I wanted to show you how big it was. (Pretty big.)

Cold and Windy

More walking. As we walked, we passed a lot of people we knew; thank goodness we were both wearing sunglasses. They just gave us double-takes; one person even stopped and stared. They got honked at.

Slush

So, once we got down to the bus stop, we stood in this for about fifteen minutes, getting stared at. Not that we minded; TBLT and I sang Disney songs until the bus showed up.

The Brave Little Toaster

Mostly, though, we were just wet and cold most of the time.

Pretty Rainbow!

After a while it dried off, and we got to see a nice rainbow. All while waiting for the bus!

Bus!

And there it was! The point of the task itself!

The Bus

The bus was PACKED. A lot of people were still snowed into their driveways, so they had to take the bus everywhere: there were old ladies,nurses in their scrubs, a few teenagers, and a very fateful mother on her cell phone with a young daughter. When I walked on, it was like the new sherrif walking into a bar; everyone went dead silent. I know that buses are usually quiet, but I mean silent.

Mr. Woofums

I smiled and took a seat in the front. (The next stop, the three people in front of me got off; I wonder why?)

Mr. Woofums

He got a bit hot, so I turned him and tried to unzip his raincoat.

The raincoat

It was a bit more difficult than I expected. The memory in the camera filled up at this point, so while TBLT fixed it (thank you for that, again) the best thing happened. The little girl (her mom was on a cell phone and not paying attention) walked up to me and asked me what his name was. I told her it was Mr. Woofums, and she asked me if she could pet him. I said of course. She started to rub his nose a little bit, but then her mom got off the phone and yelled for her to come back. So, she left. Actual conversation they had: "Mommy, that girl has a big doggie!" "Yes, dear, but leave them alone." "Why? He's really soft!" "I don't want you to get kidnapped, honey, and that's how they catch little girls like you. With big, soft stuffed animals." I was shocked! What kind of garbage are they feeding kids these days? TBLT laughed a little bit. I wanted to say something to Momzilla, but it was our stop.

The Double Doors Hate Me

As I was leaving, I gave Momzilla my pysco smile. (see above). It would have been a win exit, except the doors came and wacked me in the face. Way to throw off my groove, doors.

Walking to Starbucks

As we were walking from the bus stop to Starbucks, my theater boss passed us, and she DEFINATELY recognized us. She laughed and went on.

The Brave Little Toaster

When we went into Starbucks, it was only to grab some napkins and dry off Mr. Woofums, which we did. Then we grabbed some drinks and hit the road again.

The Bus Home

Wasn't that eventful, but I did run into an old friend of mine and a very grouchy old lady, who thought that she should have the seat Mr. Woofums was sitting in, despite the fact that we were some of the only people on the bus and every other seat in the priority seating was open. We both moved over one, and she sat right next to me, mumbling about 'kids these days' and 'respect' and 'can't even tell she's a girl', which I got a kick out of.

Pout

After the grouchy old lady got off (fairly quickly, I don't even see why she bothered to take the bus) we both missed her a little bit. She was a model to society, a joy and treasure forever. I hope I become just like her.

The Conclusion

We ended Mr. Woofum's Day Out with Baskin Robbins. I let him drink a bit of my soda.

The Brave Little Toaster and his Ice Cream

And the Brave Little Toaster got Ice Cream. And there was much rejoicing.