There is a mandatory sort of costume to be worn at ‘The Big Boy Saturday Morning Surprise,’ a destination that qualifies as a bed and breakfast, I suppose, but is really something else entirely. The costume consists of thick adult-sized pajamas with the childish ‘BBSMS’ logo printed in rainbow colors across the surface. It’s available in one and two pieces- I choose the latter in order to preserve what little dignity I feel I’m owed at this stage in life.
“And what about your little bun-bun?” The man at the counter speaks in baby-gibberish so thick I can hardly understand him.
I shrug my shoulders. “Can I leave him in the kennel here and come back to walk him?”
“Hmm- you’ve been a good little guy so far. I think it’s okay if he sleeps in your bed just this once okaaay?”
I grit my teeth while the man snips the toe off a ‘BBSMS’ sock and watches me stuff Hector through it. He’s used to wearing little jackets and takes to the process without a fuss. As I stand, I realize why I’ve been intimidated by the man at the counter. He’s higher off the ground than he should be. The desk and everything behind it is slightly large than life-sized. Confronted with it, I feel small.
The man taps his computer and hands me a room key. “Don’t lose this,” he chides, and then his voice grows more adult, “And I have to remind you that ‘The Big Boy Saturday Morning Surprise’ is a non-sexual experience. Please keep it clean in there, young man.”
He’s said this all three times already, which means they get a lot of fetishists or they get a few and they all look like me. I try not to take it personally and drag my pack and my rabbit down a hallway that grows in size as I walk. By the time I reach my room, the door knob is level with my chest and takes two hands to open.
‘Regression is never a good look and ‘The Big Boy Saturday Morning Surprise’ does its customers the courtesy of frosting all outward-facing windows. This, paradoxically, does make it seem a lot more like a sex thing than it is and police will sometimes raid the place and prudes will sometimes protest it and none of them ever seem to know why they’re there or what they’re working to stop.’
From the outside, the ‘BBSMS’ looks like some sort of factory or storage facility- all industrial-sized warehouses painted in sickly pastels. The room explains it- everything inside is sized to make me feel like an eight year old. I have to hoist Hector over my head onto the bed. By the time I’ve clambered up after him, he’s already cozied up against a teddy bear that’s at least as tall as I am.
Seeing him settled, I decide explore the room. There’s a chest of children’s toys in one corner. A closet in the far wall that rattles and groans at odd times but doesn’t open. I’ve been assured by multiple internet reviews that this is a ‘monster simulation’ and presents no real danger, but I keep my distance anyway. I check under the bed to make sure I haven’t gotten one of the nightmare rooms and, finding the coast is clear, I pull myself back up onto the mattress and settle in for an early night.
I wake to the sound of a vacuum somewhere. It’s morning, earlier than I would have liked to be up and I know most of the noises in the ‘BBSMS-’ an excited puppy, a creaking stair, a stormy night, parents arguing- are manufactured and piped in through subtle speakers. I climb down and carry Hector like a baby doll through a winding hallway until I come to the living room where people like me gather around a massive screen, mocked up to look like one of those old boxy TV sets. Cartoons are playing and shortly after I sit down a woman brings me a bowl of cereal and a cup of juice and she ruffles my hair as she turns. It’s all very condescending but the longer I sit the more pleasant it becomes.
Another woman, dressed in a onesie, sits down next to me and starts in on a bowl of cornflakes. An episode of some nineties super kid show ends and I see her push a note toward my leg. It says: WANNA PLAY DOCTOR?
-traveler
