Is he a hippopotamus?

It's 10:10 p.m. and Zoe and I are having a great time, snacking on raisins and pretzels, singing along with a Cyndi Lauper song blaring from a nearby D.J. stand and sparking up sparkler after sparkler.

The fireworks held in conjunction with our town's 175th birthday celebration should be starting in about 10 minutes. We'd successfully killed nearly an hour with no fussing -- something I was worried about considering the time. And then the inevitable: "Daddy, I have to go potty."

We'd already spent a portion of the previous hour exploring our surroundings, which was the parking lot of a shopping plaza. I knew none of the stores were open. And I knew I hadn't seen a port-a-john.

"Can you wait until after the fireworks?"

"No, Daddy. I have to go really, really bad."

So I scoop her up and we head south, toward what I deem to be the business most likely to be open: a bowling alley. The front door is locked. A side door is locked. But from there I notice a light coming from the back of the building. As we walk toward the slightly cracked door, I try to figure out where we're headed. While it's part of the bowling alley building, it looks like there was once a distinct store front here carved out of the back corner. Long ago. It's clearly boarded up. But I keep walking toward the light.

I hear voices coming from inside as we approach. With Zoe perched on my left arm, I swing the door open with my right and step inside. I'm not sure I can fully explain what we walked into, but I'll try:

It's a gutted store of some sort, with exposed metal wall beams. Unconnected HVAC ducts and electrical lines dangle from the ceiling. It's dark and thick with smoke, but you can still see that the place is filthy with layers of dust and grime on the few shelves still leaning against the walls.

All this dinginess makes the hardwood poker table and its flawless green felt stand out like a featured museum exhibit in the middle of a ... well, ... an abandoned storage room.

If the setting is straight out of a mobster movie (and it is), the guys surrounding the table are a strange mixture of Easy Rider and Deliverance. About half are serious biker dudes with leather, long hair, longer beards and sunglasses. The other half are burly country fellas in flannel, overalls and equally long beards. I actually took a moment to assess who was going to win the inevitable biker-vs.-country brawl when the game turned ugly. My money is on country, unless one of the bikers was going heavy.

The only thing moving in the room is a 400-pounder from the country camp, who is slowly whirring toward the table on one of those little scooters obese people ride at Kroger. I'm not sure where he was scooting from, considering there was nothing else in the room. Just riding around, I suppose.

I felt Zoe's legs clinch a little harder around my waist. By the time I fully digested the scene, I was about six steps inside the door and every head at the table was turned our way.

"Y'all got a bathroom she can use?" I asked in the most I-could-take-all-12-of-you-if-I-had-to voice I could muster. I'm suddenly convinced these guys had been staring out the crack in that door laughing at the guy in sandals across the parking lot who was snacking on raisins and pretzels, singing along with a Cyndi Lauper song and sparking up sparkler after sparkler.

There was an uncomfortably long silence before one guy nodded at a door in the corner of the room. "It ain't fancy," he said. "It'll do," I replied.

I never yearned for a port-a-john until that moment. I lined the toilet with paper, plopped Zoe on the seat and told her not to touch anything. I held her upright so she didn't need to lean on the seat for balance.

That's when we had the single strangest conversation of my life. It went pretty much like this:

"Dad," Zoe asked. "Was that man real?"

"What man?"

"The man in the corner. Was he real or was he in a costume?"

"Honey, I don't know who you're talking about," I said. "But all those men were real."

"But the one man was in a costume, right? He wasn't a real man."

In my head, I'm convinced she's referring to the extremely large man in the scooter. He was the only one mobile, the one my eyes were drawn to first.

"Do you mean the man in the wheelchair? He was a real man, he must just have problems walking. Remember that little boy from your school who is in a wheelchair? He's a real boy ... why would you think that man isn't a real man?"

As I'm saying this, I know she's not referring to his scooter. She's referring to his immense size. He was clearly the largest human being she'd ever laid eyes on.

"I think he was wearing a hippopotamus costume or something," she says, as she signals she's ready to wipe.

"Honey, he was not wearing a hippopotamus costume. Now you're just being silly. And we've talked about that not being nice."

"What's not nice?"

"To make fun of people because they are different," I say, trying to sound stern as I lift her off the toilet and hoist up her jeans. "You know better than that."

"But, Dad," she says from the sink. "I really think he was wearing a costume. Is he a hippopotamus?"

"No. Now listen to me," I crouch down to her eye level as she dries her hands. "Please, we'll just say thank you and walk out of here. Don't stare or point or talk about anybody. That's not nice. Do you understand?"

She agrees, so I hoist her back on my hip and swing the door open like I have a purpose. It's only about 15 paces to the poker table, then another 15 paces to the door. At pace 10, I make eye contact with the fella who pointed out the restroom for me and say thanks. It really was kind of them to let us into what is clearly a private club.

At pace 20, Zoe says in her loudest, shrillest voice: "SEE. IS THAT A HIPPOPOTAMUS!?"

Despite my horror, my head involuntarily turned where her finger pointed. I fully expected to be face-to-face with the scooter guy. Instead, sitting spread-eagle in the far corner with his head titled to one side like a slapstick movie drunk, was the largest ... stuffed hippopotamus I'd ever seen in my life.

This thing had to be 8-feet tall and as round as the trunk of a full-grown maple. How I didn't notice it on our way in, I don't know. It was big enough, for sure, for a grown man to be climb inside ... as Zoe had suspected. There wasn't a man inside. At least I don't think there was.

"Yep, you're right." I said as we walked out the door, fireworks already exploding in the black sky behind us. "That was a hippopotamus."

"I told you, Dad," she said, totally oblivious to the fits of laughter and horror that had been raging through my head during one of the strangest five-minute stretches of my life.

Why was there an 8-foot stuffed hippopotamus in a dirty white T-shirt that looked to be passed out in the corner of a dimly-lit abandoned storage room that clearly houses illegal poker games?

I'm sure I'll never know.

But it sure made for a memorable night.

Fireworks were good, too.