My brief life as a 'Carny' :)

Well, as I sit here writing this, I am lobster-red. Sun-burnt,fried, toasted to a crisp....whatever euphemism you wish to use,LOL, I am the poster child for Too Much Sun:)

I applied sunscreen yesterday before we went to work at the fair (and why exactly did I think that only One application would be sufficient when I was spending 5 hours in the sun? can't recall.) I actually was more worried that April had not applied sunscreen at all, in our rush to leave the house.

As it turned out, she ended up working in a booth in the shade for her shift....the poster-dart booth, I suppose you call it....you know, pay 2 dolla and throw a dart at a poster, if you hit a poster you get it.

I ended up working the kiddie fun house...which was Directly in the sun the entire time I was there.

Even though I got burnt,I had a Great time! I got spoken sharply to by a carny supervisor at the beginning,lol (gee, nothing like finding out you're not cutting it as a carnival worker,for pete's sake,rofl)....actually, he was very nice but just gave some suggestions for how better to run the job.

What it consisted of was letting mostly smaller children in groups of 3 to 5 through the funhouse, and then you had to Watch them going through, and be ready to turn off the barrel at the end of the ride, as some of the really little ones couldn't walk thru it, or were scared.

What a joyful way to spend the day:) with hordes of laughing and giggling 2 to 8 year olds running through the funhouse, and trying to come out through the barrel.  There were older kids coming through sometimes, but it mostly seemed to be the little ones. I had to stop the barrel twice and go in to 'rescue' some Really little ones who just stopped and started crying about halfway through,LOL, and I had to let one mother go in to get her little one Out one time, but overall most of the kids were having a wonderful time:)

Because of the way I had to stand (with my back towards the sun, as I had to have my hand on the control to stop the barrel rolling) I am weirdly burned....my neck and back, of course, and then my calves,for pete's sake...so I suppose when this fades I'll end up with lovely tanned calves and pasty white shins,rofl, which doesn't everyone aspire to? My shoulders are burnt, and just my cheeks on my face....so I guess more than anything I look "Splotchy" :)

I volunteered to run the ride because you had to be at least 16 to run it, and we were out of 16 year olds in our group. Several of the other parents who went along,Tony included, ended up being 'relief staff' where they just went around to the various games and booths that the kids were working and gave them a 15 minute or so break by taking their place. Two of the relief mothers got bored with doing this, as the kids didn't realy need That many breaks, so at various times they came over and helped run the funhouse with me for awhile, and also had a blast doing it:) and Tony came by twice to give me a break, and then just stayed there with me the last hour to help run it.

I had ended up getting only about an hour and a half of sleep after getting off work in the morning, tossing and turning I guess because I knew I only had a short time to sleep. So, we got done at 5 pm for running the rides (the games workers worked till 6 pm) and once we stopped? I realized how Tired I really was,LOL.

We grabbed dinner at the fair while waiting for April to be done, and then she decided to stay on and ride some rides. She ended up also going back and working again with the 'evening shift' from the school, when she ran out of money and tickets,lol, but I knew nothing about this at the time, because once we got home? I laid on the couch and was completely dead to the world for about 4 hours, till I woke up enough to go to bed and crash for another 6 hours.

It was a Beautiful day yesterday, clear blue skies and a nice breeze blowing and only a high of 81 degrees. One of the parents who had worked two other days at the fair commented that yesterday was the 'funnest' day she had had there, and I had to agree that I had a lot of fun, so I guess we picked the right day to do our turn helping out the fundraising.

Someone had asked if I'd take pictures? but honestly, I didn't have time. There were Very few lulls at my station, and I had decided against trying to keep up with the camera while I was there,anyway.

What do I have planned for today?  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING,lol :) If it's nice out, I may go out and just float in the pool (perhaps trying to burn the parts of me that aren't already burnt,ha ha) but otherwise, my biggest plans are just to be a 'slug':)