The return of the mascot debate
 
 
Frank Cotolo
28 Mar, 2009
 
After being on the cyberspace "air" for more than a decade, someone on staff brought up the obvious but non-addressed fact that our program does not have a mascot. First brought up at a meeting in 1998, the notion of obtaining an animal to help promote our program was quickly dismissed by the person who would have been assigned to bathe the creature. No one had brought up the idea again until recently and this time it caused some discussion.
 
"What animal would anyone suggest?" said Irving, one of the program's producers.
"A pig," said a staff member.
"A pigeon," said another staff member.
"A parrot," said another staff member.
"Let's get off the 'p' animals and move to another letter," said Irving.
"A Wave," said a boy who was not a staff member but was standing in the corner of the room wearing a sailor's outfit.
"Who are you?" Irving asked the boy in the sailor's suit.
"I'm, a young sailor in t he United States Navy and I feel your mascot should be a Wave. You know, a woman sailor."
"What are you doing here?" Irving said.
"I listen to your show," said the sailor. "So does everyone on the U.S.S. Cantaloupe. We want a Wave as a mascot."
 
Irving said he would take it into consideration even though having a human, no less a woman, as a mascot would be insulting to women. One woman on our staff agreed that it would be insulting, unless, that is, she was making in excess of fifty thousand a year doing it.
 
Next, a secretary said, "Let's have a Wallaby as a mascot."
"A Wallaby," said Irving, who was also thinking about resigning his post as he said it. "Isn't that an Australian dog?"
 
"I don't know much about the cute animal," the secretary said, "other than it is any of thirty some-odd species of macropod, from the Macropodidae family that is smaller than a kangaroo or a wallaroo. By the way, I have an Uncle Wallaroo who lives in Sydney. Or maybe he lives with Sydney? His lifestyle has always been suspect."
 
"Where would we get a Wallaby?" asked Irving.
"We could get you one," said the sailor. "Next time our ship docks in Australia we can buy one or capture one in the wilds. I know what you're thinking. You think because we are sea soldiers that we can't function on land. Nothing could be further from the truth."
 
"Yes something can be further from the truth," said a staff member. "What if I told you the planet Jupiter fell on my car last night?"
"All right," said the sailor. "That is something further from the truth."
"Is it further or farther?" asked another staff member.
"What does my father have to do with this?" said another staff member.
 
That's when Irving said the meeting was over and everyone left to use their MacDonald's coupons for lunch. Irving wrote a memo to everyone and said that the mascot debate would continue in the future, hopefully after he had resigned to open a hardware store.
 
Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles.
   
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