A day in the life of Mr. Hearty

To keep myself busy, since my visa does not permit me to work, I volunteer with the British Heart Foundation. The other week the head of volunteers called and asked if I would like to go to a local elementary school during health and safety week and speak to a few different age groups about the BHF and how to keep a healthy heart. I of course jumped at the opportunity, since this meant an entire day outside of the house! She emailed me the talk, which told the little kids what a heart looked like, what a volunteer was, how exercise keeps your heart healthy, what to eat to keep healthy and so on and so on. I was basically going to be the boring lady who comes in, is probably taking up recesses time, and talking about monotonous healthy nonsense, while out the window the luckier class gets to tour the fire engine.

When I got to the school I spoke to three different groups. The youngest ones had a hard time understanding my accent and looked at me like I was from Mars when I would slip up and talk American, saying jump rope instead of skipping and trash instead of rubbish. When I finished with the last class I thought it had gone pretty well and my goal of getting out for a few hours was accomplished, even if it was spent at an elementary school full of children. But I was totally mistaken because it was far from over. Zoe, the head of volunteers said, “Now if you don’t mind can you go and put on Hearty.”

Hearty is the BHF mascot. It is a 4 foot wide, six foot high, Bozo the clown shoe wearing, white glove waving, red, smiling heart! It is AWFUL!!! It is huge, smelly and had probably been worn by some of the UK’s finest. I couldn’t believe I had been asked to put this thing on and parade around with children. But, being the push over I am, said, “Yes of course” with a smile on my face, which was followed with Zoe saying, “Great and don’t for get you are Mr. Hearty…. So just wave and don’t talk!”

There I was changing into this god-awful costume in the principle's office with all the 10 year olds pointing and laughing at me from the playground. Then, all suited up, I had to be literally pushed by two other people through the door, out onto the playground, where they continued to point and laugh, and shoved through another door to where I was going to be photographed for the local paper. I waddled my way through the room with little girls screaming “It’s Mr. Hearty” as I awkwardly waved my hands which stuck out the center of Mr. Hearty’s body. As the children gathered around me for our picture, I heard some of the rug rats saying, “Kick him over” followed with about four boys punching and kicking my legs and the enormous heart I was wearing trying with all their might to knock me down. Then came the hands poking through the arm holes and bottom of the heart trying to feel what was inside this hideous thing, followed by a girl sticking her entire head through the arm hole proclaiming, “Its not a Mr., it’s that American lady!!” Then they all tried to cop a feel to see if I was a girl or rip off the costume to see if it really was “that American lady”. After another 10 minutes of this torture it was finally time for me to retire as Mr. Hearty.

I just can’t believe at the ripe young age of 24 my life has come to dressing up as a big red heart named Mr. Hearty for free!!