Originally published Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 12:00 AM
Portraits
José the Bunny, Rooster, Gorilla | Offers a steady wave in a sea of traffic
The bunny stands alone. Waving. Cars pass. Sometimes somebody waves back. Sometimes they honk. Sometimes they flip him the bird. He waves on.
The bunny stands alone.
Waving.
Cars pass.
Sometimes somebody waves back. Sometimes they honk. Sometimes they flip him the bird.
He waves on. Eight hours a day, five days a week, for almost two years now, this has been José's job. You could say he's in marketing, standing outside A Better Roofing on a wide-open industrial stretch of Airport Way South. He wears a company sign around his neck. Lots of business going on inside boring one-story buildings behind acres of parking. Five lanes of road here. Traffic going 45, 50 miles an hour.
And still he waves.
An hour for lunch, two 15-minute breaks.
Then it's back to waving. White bunny sandwiched between a red stop sign, yellow fire hydrant, blue mailbox. Fake fur falls over white running shoes. Air soles for this job.
It's a small wave. José's got to conserve his strength. It's a long day out there, and José's not one of those jumpin' around guys you see, like the condo hawkers with their cartoony arrows on Sunday afternoons.
This is full-time work.
This is not a cute bunny, either. José is a thin guy. And he makes for a tall, skinny bunny. Unnerving but eye-catching. For a few seconds. Zipping past. On the way to work. The way home. Every day.
Does this kind of advertising bring in work? "Oh yeah, a lot of business," says somebody in the office. "They say, 'We saw the bunny as we were driving by.' "
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That is one way to choose your roofing company.
Tomorrow José might be Sasquatch. Or Spiderman. Or Bart Simpson, a rooster, a gorilla. That's the rest of his closet.
He likes Spiderman in the summer. Says the bunny, the gorilla, Sasquatch are saunas then. And, he would like you to know that the courteous thing to do is to wave back or flash the peace sign. He likes that.
But no matter. He is paid to wave to you.
And so he does.
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
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