Man, am I popular all of a sudden.
Girls I don’t even know are coming up to me and kissing me on the cheek. Some are putting their arms around my shoulders in a very familiar way. Some are even mounting me, if you’ll pardon the expression. That is, they are climbing on my back and either straddling, side-saddling, or lying on their tummies, knees bent, feet pointing skyward and ankles crossed in what I can only describe as a bearskin rug position.
Guys are getting pretty chummy with me too, though they skip the bearskin rug pose.
Here is what it was like to be me on a recent brilliant and breezy afternoon, oak leaf shadows dappling my tawny limestone hide:
A girl in a blue gown and a blue cardboard hat nestles against my left flank and cups my left ear with her right hand. She smiles so hard it looks like her face hurts, while her mother frames and focuses. Click.
Then Mom hands the camera to the next person in line and joins her daughter. Click. Then Mom reclaims camera and Daughter straddles me.
‘It’s slippery,’ she says.
‘That’s cute,’ says Mom.
Click.
‘Next,’ says Mom.
Next is a quintet of red-, blonde-, black- and two brown-haired girls, all wearing white sleeveless dresses. They line up along my starboard side. Then they stand behind my port side and lean their arms on my back, looking like a row of blooms on a dogwood branch.
Then there are the couples. She drapes her arms around his chest, like a sash. He rests his hand on her knee. He sits on my left shoulder, she on my right, like driver and passenger in a car. They dismount by sliding down my nose.
A girl with blue toenails has brought an extra mortarboard – for me! I feel positively professorial. She puts her arm around my left front leg. Then she puts her hand on my right front paw. Then she kisses me on my left jowl, her tassel billowing in the breeze.
Next comes a sextet of girls. After they all pose in their caps and gowns, three pose with caps, no gowns and three with gowns, no caps.
A guy, his parents and his aunt take their turn. Dad takes the pictures while the two women stand behind him, beaming. Then Dad gets in front of the camera. Then Mom does. Then Mom, Dad, Auntie and Senior cluster around my head for a final shot.
A radiant blonde leans against my head, crosses her arms, crosses her ankles and cocks her head winsomely.
‘Ride the lion,’ urges her radiant blonde mom.
‘I don’t know if I can do that,’ the daughter says. She can, and she does. ‘Does my bra show?’ she asks. It doesn’t.
Some of my ‘riders’ look like they’ve been going for gallops on the backs of lions since they learned to stand. Others hang on for dear life, as if afraid I’ll buck them off –which I would never do.
A guy with a passing resemblance to Ralph Fiennes strikes an insouciant pose — right elbow on my left shoulder, left hand on his hip. Then he straddles my neck, a hand on each ear as if they were handlebar grips. Then he poses on my back with one knee down and one knee up, as if he’s shot me on safari.
A mixed-gender septet, all the guys in aviator shades, climbs aboard and arranges itself as the crew of a Viking longboat. The guy at my ‘bow’ mimes horns with his fingers. Everyone else pretends they’re rowing.
For his solo shot, the Viking slides between my front paws so that most of him is under me except for his head, which dangles off my pedestal. He explains that I am supposed to look like I am mauling him, which, of course, is another thing I would never do.
Then he strikes a solemn pose. ‘Get a Mom shot,’ he says to his crew.
Only one couple gives up. ‘Let’s try the JoePa statue,’ the girl says.
Lest I feel slighted, two girls position themselves on each side of my head, pucker up and kiss me on the jowls.
‘Seniors!’ someone shouts from a passing car in a falsetto voice.
Apart from the pair that forsakes me for JoePa, I’m impressed by how patient and polite everyone is. Even without velvet ropes or ushers, everyone stands in line. The picture takers apologize for taking too long. The people in the queue urge the picture takers to take their time.
‘It’s only gonna be a few hours,’ one joker says.
Everyone agrees to take photos for everyone else so everyone in every photo party can be in the picture.
‘You’ve got to get a picture with the lion,’ a senior explains.
