The Carnie Circuit

Sorry its been so long since my last post. I am pretty bad at keeping up on stuff like this so I don't blame you if I lost you as a follower of my blog.

So this past weekend we went to a local town festival where we experienced some of the joys of the Carnie world. As you will see from Linz's post on our family blog, we did see some cute animals and enjoyed some nice weather outside. The rest of our experience got me thinking about the world of Carnies.

If you don't know what a Carnie is, well, basically it refers to a person who works at a Carnival. My first exposure to the word came from the Austin Powers movie where he says that he is afraid of only two things – nuclear war and "Carnies. Circus Folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands."

Luckily my parents didn't take us to low budget Carnivals as kids. If we went somewhere it was a place like Cedar Point where the low budget feel of Carnivals is drowned out by the awesome roller coasters. We have been to the Minnesota State Fair when we lived here before and even that place didn't give me the uncomfortable feeling I felt this past weekend. Actually, I realized one of my lifetime dreams when we went the the Minnesota State Fair. We were randomly walking around and we saw a sign that said one of the original "Lollipop Guild" munchkins from the Wizard of Oz was going to make a guest appearance. We hung around and actually saw him. I can't remember which one it was the one in blue on the end in this picture:

He was so little and old, like a walking raisin. I didnt meet him, but I saw him and that was enough for me.

Needless to say, I have never really had a bad experience at a Carnival of any type, but as we were walking around this past weekend, the reality of these peoples lives kind of hit home. What a life, travelling everywhere some little town is having an event, setting up shop knowing that two or three days later you would have to pack up and move on somewhere else. Basically begging or suckering people to come play your ring toss game, or the famous rigged "throw a beanbag baseball at the oddly heavy plastic milk bottles" games. I saw this lady like waiting for someone to come play her game totally smoking away. As a parent, that wouldnt be the game I take my kid to play, as she takes your money and puffs a cloud of smoke in your face. Anyways, I felt bad for these Carnie folk, at the same time I was sure they hopefully found some type of joy in their lives in what they were doing. Heck, they might be richer than I will ever be considering the prices for the games and the actual payout of prizes.

Now on to the actual reason for this post. While at the Carnival, Violet wanted to ride a carousel. We found the only one there. It was a rather scary looking contraption that when we saw it Linz said she didnt think she trusted putting Daphne on it, so we just let Violet ride. I let Violet choose her animal and she wound up getting on this monkey. At first I thought it was kind of cute that she chose a monkey since that is probably what I would have chosen too. And in the following pictures you will see how happy she was to be riding this monkey wearing blue jeans and a shirt. I thought this was all so cute until I looked the monkey in the face. Suffice it to say that since yesterday morning I have daymares and nightmares where that face haunts me. Linz would not allow me to post the pictures on our family blog in fear that it would drive all of her readers away. I am only posting it here as a form of therapy for myself. Please do not be shocked, and also please know that Violet has not shown any signs of being affected by this hideous beast. I think Linz and I are bearing the brunt of its effects. Needless to say, we will not be visiting any Carnivals any time soon. I am posting these pictures with the warning, LOOK AT YOUR OWN RISK.....













Cute right? Monkey wearing blue jeans.


WRONG!!!!!





Sweet Dreams!!