Carny Work Stories: Part 2

Last post didn't disand I reached Trusted so here's some more stories for you guys! To clarify: apparently "carny" to most people means the sleazy dudes at state fairs and such. I work in an amusement park, I wear a polo and khakis, most of my coworkers are high school/college students on summer break. 

FP Edit: two FP posts in one day? Shit guys, thanks. Send me pictures of your dogs, I'm moving into college today and I already miss my pup.

First post: http://imgur.com/gallery/L1Arm

Anyways. A lot of people ask me if they 'slip something my way,' I can guarantee a win. Not how it works, games are either completely based on skill, or a mixture of luck and skill.

This lil shit. I was trying to get her to move over to the fence so she could play her game while her mom helped her older brother, she legit snorted at me like a pig. instead of helping, her dad just starting laughing. I didn't ask her again, when the mom noticed she wasn't playing she laid into me. Sorry lady, not my fault.

Don't do this. Ever. I don't know why, but as annoyed as people get when they get "scammed" out of their money, they seem very flippant with it when paying for games, just dropping it in the payment box when I'm not looking. If there's a crowd of 10 people at the counter, and I didn't see who put the money in, then I'm just gonna ask the crowd. If somebody else steps up to play your game, there's nothing I can do.

Y'all are gonna think I'm crazy. There's a TL;DR for this one.

Every day I drive to work, I see this groundhog/gopher on the side of the road, without fail. The first day I don't see it is the day the lady tried to steal a prize from frog fishing, second day I don't see it is the busiest day of the year, third day I don't see it is the slowest day of the year.

So I'm thinking that this gopher is indicative of my day at work. I start to look forward to seeing this gopher. If I don't see the gopher, it's gonna be a bad day. Without fail, gopher days are good days, non-gopher days are bad days.

On my last day, guess fucking what. The gopher is roadkill.

On my *last day*. Not the day before, or the day after. My last day, the gopher is dead. I'm js.

TL;DR: gopher is a symbol for my workday, is redneck dinner on my last day.

At poster darts, you can opt to shoot for a little printed out star to get a giant stuffed animal. I always stress, you have to land the dart *inside* the star, not just on the square piece of paper. Without fail, if the dart hits the paper outside the star, I tell them it doesn't count, they tell me I never said that. Even if I hadn't said it, it's on the sign. Please, try to scam the scammer.

We're watching your money the whole time, for our own sake as well as yours - we don't want you to pay the wrong amount, and we don't want our personal banks to be off when making change. So if you don't put money in, we know. It's normally not worth the trouble to go after them for just a couple bucks, and they never win anything worthwhile anyways.

Ring toss is the biggest culprit for this. Get a ring on a bottle, win a giant stuffed animal!! If it sounds too easy to be true, only play when you're feeling lucky.
Larger prizes = more difficult games, easier to get roped into the never-ending cycle of "there's no *way* I'll miss it next time." Likewise, don't get pissed if you get a small prize at a "winner every time" game. You got a prize, be happy.

Seriously, the only place you'll find rigged games are circuses and fairs, and even then I'm not so sure. If you're in a permanent establishment, the games probably aren't rigged. Sure, they look easier to win than they are, but you can win every prize. The games department alone makes so much bank, handing out a couple $40 jumbo prizes every day doesn't do shit to our profit margin.

Also, if you really want a prize, just ask to buy it. It'll be fucking expensive, but you can do it if you're really dedicated.

I kinda became known for this. We had music going at all times, to draw people in and give us something to do. Impromptu lip sync battles make passerbys happy, and when they look my way they see the prizes behind me, and suddenly it's "just one game."

Honestly though, it's just great to make people happy. These days a little bit of a smile can mean the world to somebody.

In my other post I talked about the boy vs girl prizes, this is kind of an extension. Kid really wanted this car poster, but he got the Marilyn Monroe poster right next to it. I was in the middle of my "aww man, did you want the Porsche instead?" spiel, when the dad cuts me off and says "Hah! He hit a chick poster!"

The kid was probably 8 years old, he broke down crying on the counter. Seriously, if you do this, you're a dick. Brought out the Porsche poster, but it didn't really cheer him up at that point.

Parents think they know everything. Duck Pond was probably the game most often called Rigged. Seriously? It's duck pond, you pick up a rubber duck and get a prize. There's no two ways about it.

Disclaimer: happened to a coworker, I was running another game nearby.

If a family member is so drunk you have to continually apologize for them, maybe don't bring them out in public. The kicker: she was a mom with her extended family and children, starting at age 6 or 7.

We're in an amusement park. You're gonna have to be more specific than that.

Kids get so dejected about midway games. This boy was sad he never won anything, threw his whiffle ball on the board, it rolls neatly into the jumbo. He brought home a zebra as tall as he was and the biggest fucking smile.

If you go to a park with a free show of any kind, it's probably not shit like most people expect, but actual paid performers. We had five acrobats that did a Cirque du Soleil style show a few times a day, right across from the midway. You always knew what time it was from the pre-show music playing, and usually knew exactly what part of the show they were at, once you'd seen it a few times.

If you had a shift that ended the same time a show started, hearing that music come on was the highlight of your day.

This one still makes me laugh. Guy was holding fried dough, kids were playing a game. A bee was flying around his daughter's hair, so with a perfectly straight face he just threw the fried dough at his daughter's head. Powdered sugar everywhere. His only apology was "I don't like bees, yo."

That's all I got, hopefully I'll be back this time next year with another riveting post!