I had an idea several years ago. I wanted to go to every local carnival and make up a t-shirt with the information about each one like a rock tour shirt.
That plan fell apart for two reasons – my daughter and I saw our carnival attendance diminish, and I’m lazy.
We just had too much going on to get to many carnivals anymore. When she was little, those trips filled the gaps on Saturday nights when my wife worked.
With fewer free weekends (and fewer carnivals- another bummer), my genius t-shirt idea faded away.
I thought of all this recently as we headed to the Delone carnival. Bridget wanted to go with a friend, so Maria and I went along for the ride.
When we arrived, I realized we had entered a new era of carnival attendance. No longer would we walk around and watch from outside the kiddie rides. We needed to entertain ourselves while the girls walked around.
Getting something to eat only killed so much time. We had no intention of going on any rides, especially since it was drizzling. We had to come up with something.
Bingo.
That’s both what I said when I had the idea and what we did. In all the years we had gone to the Delone carnival, we never set foot in the cafeteria for Bingo. That changed his year.
I can say without a doubt that this ranked as one of my favorite carnival experiences ever. I figured we would play a couple of games before walking around the parking lot again.
We have developed an interesting relationship with the game in recent years. A couple of my sisters have started to run charity Bingo events that have turned into great family events. We even had family Bingo night at the beach once or twice.
Because of all this, I have high standards for Bingo callers. I know that B-1 is the baby of Bingo. When B-4 is called, you should reply “and after.” And B-11 is “chicken legs.”
The caller at Delone – while he had a wonderful personality and kept the game lively – added none of these touches. I started to feel a twinge of disappointment. Then we started winning.
The prizes started small, $2.50 the first time we had to share a pot. Not considering a $1 investment per game gave you five cards. Then we won a game all by ourselves and collected $7.50.
I though things could not improve, but we won another $7.50 pot. I wanted to run out and buy some lottery tickets. I could see Easy Street from my chair. Or maybe that was just Delone Avenue.
Bridget and her friend even collected a $2.50 pot when they came in to escape the rain. We were untouchable.
All good things must come to an end so we bailed out after we didn’t win one of the big jackpots. The girls walked around a little and I sat own to figure out how secondhand more trips like that.
I could make some money off this carnival gig.