The Coat That Wouldn't Come Off! by A. A. Augustine

One, twoooo, threeee!!!... Yelled the crowd led by the man behind the table. And on three,
a small puff of smoke from the mans feet erupted and when the smoke cleared, well, there was the
women in the polka dotted sundress with the blue bird hat looking like she had just stolen a coat from
her fathers closet. Sleeves down around her ankles and the waist of the coat at her feet. Her face had
now turned as red as the coat. Embarrassed that nothing had actually happened at all except her
sleeves fell down and her naiveté and gullibility were now on parade in front of half the town, no less.
The man behind the table looked flabbergasted! “Why, why, hold on folks! Maybe she’s
not in it all together!” The man began adjusting the coat to and fro and at this point, a rather smallish,
rotund, elderly lady in a white dainty bonnet and a housecoat began chastising the tattered, top-hated
carnival barker behind the table with insults.
“This is preposterous! You sir… are a charlatan! A bamboozler and a cad! Promising us
magic in that coat! You’re an imposter! Unhand that girl sir!” The lady declared.
With those very words, some of the crowd toward the back began to leave. The rest of the
crowd that did stick around out of sheer curiosity to see what happened next, began to boo the
tattered, top-hated man behind the table and hurl insults in his direction as the women in the polka
dotted sundress with the bluebird hat started to squirm out of the coat while her husband streamed
through the crowd to grab his wife, pulling her from the coat’s oversize clutches and the obvious,
painful public humiliation of it all. In the commotion of that heated moment, the coat suddenly fell
to the ground right under the very table Johnny was standing at with his crushed bag of groceries. It
fell right at Johnny’s feet. The tattered, top-hatted man behind the table had failed to notice the coat
had fallen as he was too busy fending off the sudden barrage of insults and ad-hock comments that
were heading his way.
“No, stay, fine lady! Stay!” The man pleaded as he stepped between the husband and the
lady in the polka dotted dress with the blue bird hat. “These people know not of true magic! Folks,
folks, please! I assure you this is a most magical coat! One that will fit any size! Big or small!
Instantly! Folks, folks, please!” Implored the tattered, top-hated man who was now becoming visibly
more tattered than even his hat.
His pleading seemed to take hold on some of the crowd and some more of the men in the
back decided to stay, arms folded and grinning, much to their wives dismay and see for themselves
what this “magic coat” could actually accomplish.
Johnny had decided that the bonneted lady in the crowd might be right and whatever the
man was up to was probably a hoax and he would only try to sell everyone in the crowd some sort of
snake oil miracle material solution after the presentation. Well, Johnny decided he was no fool and
began to push out from in front of the table. But just as he did, something inside him wouldn’t let him
take his eyes off the coat on the ground. It was just sitting there and no one seemed to know or notice
or even see it. Except Johnny.
“Maybe in the commotion, I could grab the coat and see for myself what it could do!”
Johnny thought.
The tattered, top-hated man had now stepped outside the table area to try to convince the
woman in the polka dotted sundress with the blue bird hat back behind the table to stay so he could
try to get her to try on the coast one more time. But her husband kept insisting that he was going to
give him a knuckle sandwich if he comes near her and tries to embarrass her again! Which was funny
Johnny thought, because it seemed like the man was pushing his wife up to the table in the first
place.
Before Johnny got too far back into the crowd, he changed his mind and decided to go for
it. He set his bag of groceries down and started to crawl between the legs of the crowd and under the
table to retrieve the coat when all of a sudden a large hand clasped onto Johnny shoulders. “Busted!
Dang!”
“So close…” Johnny thought. “So close.”
Suddenly, a large voice behind him began to shout. It was the tattered top-hated man from
behind the table.
“Now, folks this young man here… he, he will now try the coat on! Just look at him! Look
at the size difference!” The man grabbed Johnny and held him up by his waist pressed against his
chest and held the coat up in his other hand.
People all over the street now began to turn around. A lady Johnny knew from town yelled