awesome friday

I filled a hole in Tami's shift yesterday, a 2:30-5:00. Easy money. I had time to re-arrange and start shifting the gallery, and at 4:00 the customers came. From the highest mountains to the lowest valleys, everyone wanted movies. I had quite a line. Everyone was in good spirits, and the carnival served as easy small-talk. At 5:00, the evening shift arrived. It had yet to rain, and Tami and I decided to head out to the parking lot to ride a ride. We went on a hand glider contraption that goes in circles, where we control how high or low we went. Our co-riders were a group of 7-9 year old girls. From there, having survived the family-friendly ride without vomiting, we headed to the "ferris wheel of death". Not what it's actually called, but looking at it, one would easily identify the ride I'm talking about. Tami and I were the only people on it. After loading us in and securing us, the ride started. After one pass, they stopped the ride and told us they were going to put us in a different cage...one that would go upside down. Oh joy. So we were moved from a cage that had a sway to it but maintained an upright position, to one with no sway, meaning that by the time we reached the top of the wheel we'd be 100% upside down.

I should mention that Tami and I went directly from work to the carnival in full Movie Gallery attire. The fact that we clearly worked in the plaza, coupled with Tami being somewhat of a carny magnet, meant that all the handlers (or engineers, as one carny identified himself to be..."I'm not a carny, you know. I'm a mechanical engineer. I just travel with the fair part-time". Sure, carny. Sure.) felt the need to...I don't know. Get us. Make us puke. Make us giggle. But primarily, the puke part. I guess we were a novelty in our matching red polos and khaki pants. Not to mention being the oldest people at that point riding rides. So when we switched cages on the FWOD, their fun began. We handled upside-down like pros. Having not made us scream or cry, the carnies started slowing the ride down once we hit the top, leaving us upside down and virtually immobile, just dangling in the sky. Boobs flopping about, hair mussed, foreheads ready to burst. It was crazy. Tears were streaming down our faces from laughing so hard. After a few rounds, they brought us back down. Before letting us out, Carny Jr. reactivated the spin mechanism and hand-spun our cage ultrafast. He then stopped on a dime, and spun us in the opposite direction (forward to back, then back to forward). Ugh! We survived. The ticket handler commented on our lack of screaming. We told him we were awesome.

Surviving the FWOD perhaps made us a bit too cocky, a touch too confident. The apple ride I referred to the other day, "Spin the Apple"is pretty much like the teacup ride, but on a smaller scale. That, and you're actually inside a hollowed out apple. So the only open air you see is a window-sized square near the entrance. Anyway, we overspun right off the bat. Suddenly there was a very real danger of yakking. We stopped our apple and rode out the ride just going in a circle. But the damage was done. The apple ride, perhaps the family-friendliest contraption of the lot, wrecked us. We went back into the store and hid in Tami's office, waiting for the spinning to stop. We were officially done with the carnival for the night.

It's raining today, but it's lightened up considerably since 9:00 a.m. So they're possibly opening things up at 3:00 today, and I think Jeremy and I are going to check it out. I have yet to go on the La Kermesse ride, and I could use another piece of fried dough.