Phia the Carnie!So I have to admit there’s always been a small part of me that has wondering how glorious it would be to be a Carnie (aka a carnival worker). I’m pleased to report that this weekend I got my chance and well let’s just say that it was less fun then perhaps I had imaged.

This past weekend Phia and I volunteered to work the Qualcomm company carnival with the proceeds from our efforts of course benefiting the Leukemia & Lymphoma society. First of all I have to say that they gave us totally sweet uniforms, which we later found out were recycled god only knows how many times. The uni’s consisted of a blank blue T, and awesome hand printed name tag and one of the nicest visors I’ve ever seen. I believe it was made of some kind of foam material, classy.

Our job was to pour soda’s for the attendees and on paper that sounds like it might be fun. However when people aren’t paying for the drinks one under estimates the shear volume of soda that thousands of people are capable of consuming. At first, the pace was slow and we had some time to look around and enjoy ourselves a bit. From there it was all down hill. we got hammered and it was all we could do to keep glasses filled. We had hundreds of 2 liter bottles and trays of ice and just had to scoop – pour – serve pretty much as fast as we could. As soon as we lined them up, they pretty much were gone. At one point I commented to Phia, “If I ever complain about my job, please remind me of this day”. Truth was it was hard work, but we had fun, people were friendly and it was as always for a wonderful cause. We closed the evening with an amazing Fireworks show and left for home no worse for the wear.

I’ll admit I have more respect for the work that the “Carnies” do, unfortunately for them it’s not all “fun and games” as you might think. It’s better to go TO a carnival then to work at one.

If you want to see me in my sweet Carnie gear then you’re going to have to click Here

Bryan