Incidents and Accidents

The Professional Santa expects some aspect to go wrong sometimes; the best that can be done is to prepare, and then work up contingencies. Pulling on beard = expected, child sneezing on you = expected, child has 'accident' of one form or another = expected. But some things can be totally out of left field and you have to react quickly.

Best example that we have is the time my PS was touring the shops of a town gig when a guy comes up and says something like "Santa, I got the stuff (okay, another word for 'stuff')." At this point the guy opens his coat and shows my PS a bunch of, presumably stolen, jewelry, watches, etc. But my PS was cool and saw the local policeman walking by, so my PS puts his arm around the guy's shoulder and guides him over to the police officer, telling the officer that he may wish to 'discuss' an important matter with this guy. Turned out the guy had arranged to 'fence the goods ' with a Santa in another town. Shame on that other Santa! Oh, and what a stupid crook!

Another time while working at a mall, which my PS avoids now if he can, a little boy, about 3 years old, saw Santa in the holiday display on the lower level, 30 feet below in what is normally the fountain area. The boy was so excited, he started to climb over the glass railing from his stroller and was close to the top of the railing when my PS saw him. His mother was distracted, all this took place in a matter of moments, but the possibility for disaster was very real. My PS excused himself from the little girl on his lap, ran to the middle where the escalators were and yelled up in a big, booming Santa voice "Get down from there or Santa will not come to your house for Christmas." He never dropped character, and he knew he would never be able to get to the child in time, nor would anyone else unless they saw the boy at that moment. The boy did get down, the mother scooped him up and thanked my PS profusely. My PS then finished with the child who he had put down, asked for time to 'feed the reindeer' and went for a break to stop shaking - this had really scared him!

Same gig at the mall, another day during the week, a little girl was playing in the Santa area. Everyone thought she was waiting for her mom to catch up, but after 30 minutes, Santa asked her where her parents were. The little girl replied that 'Mommy told her to wait here' - in effect, using the Santa people as an unpaid baby-sitter! When 'Mommy' showed up, my PS told her that she cannot do that, that liability issues could be involved, not to mention abandonment and that the next time it happened, the state social services would have to be called. Turned out that she had done this before, with the other Santa's, but none of the others had really noticed. In addition, she was having an afternoon affair with one of the employees in one of the mall stores. Wow!

All we can say is, be prepared!