Have you seen the Dum Dum Drum?

Walking to work the other day (I recently moved to another office, which is only a 10 minute walk from my apartment), I saw a group of people with buckets of Dum Dum lollipops. They were handing them to passers-by, which is not an uncommon practice in Midtown. People hand you things all the time. I once got 5 free bottles of water on a hot day just by saying that I had quadruplets at home.

Anyway, I didn't get a lollipop. But I was captivated by the mascot, the Dum Dum Drum. It was an anthropomorphic bass drum; the kind that people used to play in high school marching band but with a big smiley face. The Dum Dum Drum looked happy.

I thought about, on a temperate day, how nice it would be to be the Dum Dum Drum. The only person you answer to is the 4 year-old tugging on your costume. You get to wave your arms like an idiot, which is only really possible when wearing such a costume. You get all the free lollipops you want. And, if you were an angry sort of Drum (which I am not), you could give people the finger inside the Dum Dum Drum and they wouldn't even know it. Anyway, thinking about all of this, I think I was a little jealous of the Dum Dum Drum.

I'll bet Dum Dum Drum doesn't even have a 401k or any kind of plan for his life after lollipops, though. Next time I see him, I might say "Life isn't always going to be fun and games. You need to think of the future, Lollipop Man." And then I'll take my seven lollipops and be on my way.