Delivering the gift of smiles

By Kaelanne Jordan
Email: mediarelations.camsel@catholictt.org

What makes you smile? A joke, a warm greeting, or a kind gesture?

Well, imagine a costumed character surprising you at your place of work or residence delivering flowers and chocolates on your birthday.

Will that make you smile? According to David Reid, it certainly will.

Reid and his wife Mauricia are the owners of Reidos Speedos Fun Shop, a business whose mission is to deliver smiles to customers’ faces with his costumed characters.

These characters help deliver flowers, chocolates, gift baskets for marriage proposals, birthdays, ‘I’m sorry’ gifts, Valentine’s, Christmas Day, and other special occasions.

The idea for this unique business came in 2012 based on the positive reaction of adults seeing a Cookie Monster character during a sports day.

Of his enterprise, Reid told Catholic News, “We, too, have never seen it done anywhere else in the world. My wife would have taken me all about the place and we would have seen people dressed up as costume characters in the street in the US but nobody ever doing deliveries. So, it’s something that is very unique. It’s not something we would have seen anywhere to copy it. Everything is brand new ideas, straight from the creativity of my wife’s mind.”

Today, Reidos Speedos Fun Shop owns seven costumes. Its first character costume was Cookie Monster (2012). Then Mickey Mouse and Santa Claus followed. Other characters: Elmo, Sponge Bob and Iron Man were purchased locally from a character company that went out of business.

A teddy bear costume purchased online “has been a hit” for the past two years, Reid added.

While most of their deliveries are for adults, from time to time the business has been asked to bring a smile to children’s parties. “But our suits are very warm, so we try to stay away from it, but we don’t say no,” he said.

Reidos Speedos Fun Shop has done deliveries to customers as far as Blanchisseuse, Mayaro, Tobago, Toco, Cedros and Palo Seco. Questioned on whether remote locations pose a constraint, Reid clarified that accessing government offices to do deliveries and balancing his full-time job as a prison officer since 2007 challenges.

Of his career in the prison service, Reid clarified, “Even in that environment, I’m not an aggressive person and I always use dialogue to solve my problems. There is no problem that cannot be solved with good old fashion conversation…. Sometimes before I go to work, I do a delivery and when I reach to work, I’m the happiest person on earth, like if I eat cake,” Reid said with a chuckle.

According to Reid, the “most difficult day” for the business is Valentine’s Day with 34 deliveries this year.

With the addition of fruit baskets—local and exotic—Christmas has become a very busy day for the Reids with 19 deliveries last year.

While previous years the Reids would have been fully booked for the season, “this year is trickling slowly”.

For Reid, Mother’s Day, was a “very busy day” but in the last two years “we not seeing that type of reaction or demand…” “Father’s Day, people don’t call at all,” he said.

In explaining the process, Reid said when he is contacted for his services, the caller is first given details on available packages. The caller is then required to WhatsApp the person’s name, a photo, delivery location and time for delivery. Having an image of the client is critical to avoid delivering to the wrong person.

During the deliveries, photos and videos are usually taken by Mauricia and will be shared with the client.

Sometimes the videos are edited, but in most cases, “it’s even more beautiful raw.” These videos he shared also puts him in an “immediate” happy mood when he replays them.

“When you’re doing something like making people smile, it’s a bit of a stress reliever too because it is something that we actually enjoy doing. It’s like therapy for us. When sometimes we might leave the house in a disagreement, and after we do the delivery, both of us are in a very good mood because smiles [are] contagious,” Reid said.

He recently posted an image on his WhatsApp status of a lady and him dressed as Elmo at the Hyatt. The same lady, he said, saw it and messaged him, relaying how happy she was by the experience.

“…and as she was messaging me, her brother was telling me that her son went back into the hospital for cancer treatment…. but she didn’t know that I knew she was at the hospital… That was such a magical moment. That warmed everyone hearts,” he said.

Reid, a parishioner of St Charles’ RC, Tunapuna, and Mt St Benedict, shared that the proceeds from the business go towards a breakfast drive for the homeless from St Joseph to Tacarigua once a month, Sunday morning.

Reid and his wife are always looking at ways to improve the business. He thanked persons who have supported the business over the years adding that by supporting, they are making a real contribution to society–the gift of a smile.

Reidos Speedos can be contacted at 768-7292. You can check them out on Facebook and Instagram ‘Reidos Speedos Fun Shop’.