First off, coming from the world of Fort Knox around money, things are a little carefree at the fair. I spent most of my time in the Box Office ... which had bars on the front window to give it the appearance of a secured room-- but the side door was unlocked and anyone could come and go as they pleased.
That was little unnerving at first because I've been brained washed to think you need locked doors and security cameras with money. But, I didn't really have that much money -- nothing worth going to jail over by any means. I was trapped in the building to the end of my shift -- so anyone that wanted to steal it would have had to deal with me yelling for the Sheriff on the radio first. I camoflagued the cash drawer with some papers and that was pretty the end of my "Fort Knox" worries.
So on the first day, I had about 10 minutes of training and was given enough information to make me dangerous and then they just set me loose. Alone in the ticket booth on opening day. In addition to selling tickets for Cheap Trick and Buckcherry, I was supposed to make announcements every 20 minutes or so. Ha! Anyone who really knows me knows that I hate talking on the PA. So I stalled as long as possible before doing the first one.
So finally around 11:30, I got up the nerve to do it. I walked into the back area of the shed that I was in and practically had to stand on my tiptoes to reach the microphone. I started strong -- "Welcome to the 58th annual Dubuque County Fair. Today is opening day." Bla bla bla ... I rambled through the whole announcement and noticed that my entire body was shaking when I was finally done. I had no idea if anyone had even heard what I said or if I made sense or whatever. I slinked back to the front of the room and sat down on my stool -- feeling triumphant that I had conquered my fear and got through it. I was feeling pretty good about it too ... until about 15 minutes later when this guy, who was probably only 18 years old, came in the building and did something with the switches on the sound equipment. Then he said to me "ah, you need to stand closer to the mic ... like pick it up and put it really close to your mouth. And then talk louder -- cuz it sounded like you were mumbling." Ok, yeah, thanks dude. What a way to blow through an old lady's high.
I got around to doing the next annoucement about 30 minutes later and I only did it because this Jr Board member came up and gave me some additional annoucements to make. Then we negiotated a deal that I would do the regular annoucement and she would do the new ones. So I blasted through the "Welcome to the DBQ County Fair" segment with some new confidence that just came out of nowhere. Then she did her spiel and totally screwed it up. That made me feel great -- seriously. A regular, I've been at this fair for the last upteen years, tried to act all perfect and screwed it up just as bad as I had the first time. She and I had a good laugh about it and mysteriously, after that, I wasn't afraid to do the annoucements anymore.
Apart from doing the annoucements, I answered -- er, tried to answer a lot of questions. Like I said, I had enough information to make me dangerous and the rest of the time, I just had to wing it. Oh yeah, and selling tickets - -which was my true main purpose for sitting in the "box office" in the first place.
So at about 12:30, a woman came up to buy 3 tickets for Cheap Trick and I was acting all pro with my 10 minutes of ticket selling training, but I couldn't get them to print. Tried everything before I gave in and called the office on the radio. So Sara, the ticket-master, came down to try to figure things out. Well, first off, I had marked off the wrong tickets, which was part of the problem why they wouldn't print. So I learned how to exchange tickets -- which could be helpful down the road someday. But even after we exchanged them, the printer still wouldn't work. Tried everything. Took the ticket stock out, put it back in, turned it off, waited, turned it back on. Called printer support - ran through some diagnostic tests, etc. All to no avail. My shift ended at 2 pm and when I left, the printer was still dead.
So then I took lunch and realized once again the FAIR is no place for a vegetarian that doesn't like salads. I settled on some french fries and a Sprite. Then went to my next assignment which was working the gate.
I was looking forward to working the gate at first. I was scheduled to work the main gate, so I thought that would be fun -- a good way to talk to people, mingle, chat it up. But then, at the last minute, I got switched to working to North Gate by the race track instead. That wasn't quite as fun. At all.
The kid I was working with was a very nice 15 year old. CJ was his name. We had some fun conversation. He had been working at that spefic gate all day, so he had the parking pass checking down to a science. I had to be the police with the people who tried to turn "in prior to 3 pm" into 3:01, 3:05 and then dealt with those calling me a bitch for being mean. I wasn't mean! Read the effing program people. In prior to 3 pm does not translate to anytime around 3 when you get your fat ass up to the gate.
Again -- I had that Fort Knox syndrome with the cash drawer -- and maybe because this time I had a lot more cash in front of me. But I had CJ -- and although he was a little scrawny -- at least he could deter the would be robber for a second while I screamed for help on the radio.
The other bad thing about being stuck at this gate was that it was fricken hotter than hell. The booth I was standing in faced West -- right into the setting sun. There was no ventilation and I was totally sweating. I could feel the sweat dripping down my back and pooling in my shorts. Occassionaly I would step out the back door of the "hut" to try to cool off and get some air moving around the crotch of my shorts -- because they were seriously soaked. I was sure people were going to think that I wet my pants -- it was making me self conscious at first, but by 6:30, I just didn't care anymore.
I think heat distorted the true passage of time too. I set the timer on my watch to go off in 30 minute intervals to give us something to look forward too .... but on more than one occassion, CJ and I would wonder if the clock had even moved forward at all. Every god forsaken minute was the longest minute of my life -- and since there wasn't a lot of traffic moving back there at the North Gate, time just seemed to drag on. About the only excitement that we had was watching the tractors coming in for the tractor pull, but after the 10th one everthing looked the same to me. (yes! I said that ... me - the daughter of a farmer and former farm equipment salesman -- not impressed with the traffic line up)
CJ was stamping hands for possible re-entrance later in the night. Tuesday's stamp went on the underside of the right wrist. Simple enough -- so why when CJ gave that instruction and waited for people to turn their wrist over, did they shove their left wrist in front of his face, or the backside of their hand or act like they didn't understand? (We laughed about this alot when people walked away). Then there were the questions: "What if I go home and take a shower and this washes off? Can I still get back in?" Ah, duh, NO. "Will this stamp work for tomorrow night? Ah .. no. Seriously -- some cheap ass people will try anything I guess.
And, not that I was really paying attention or anything -- but I only heard the "annoucements" like twice while I was out there at the gate -- guess no one else really wanted to do them either.
Tuesday night -- I was dog tired when I got home. I even went to bed early. Which is a shocker for me.
Day 2.
Day two in the ticket booth was just as uneventful as the day before. The printer issue had been resolved thankfully -- but then there was this whole issue with the phone line. The maintenance guy came over and did some tests on the phone and then decided that for some reason or another the line was bad and he had to rewire it. This is what I would call a Mike Holmes moment: Here's what the box looked like when he took it apart.
Notice how the paint on the wall is all bubbly? Yeah, well on further investigation between the maintenance guy and me -- said Mike Holmes expert -- we determined the phone line fried because the mortar between the cement blocks was all crumbly (yes, a technical term) and water seeped in. The wall was still wet when I took this picture. The curious part was the maintenance guy said the phone stopped working Tuesday afternoon before the rain. Something about the transfer from the main office not working -- which didn't make sense to me because it worked fine when I was in the ticket booth. I had taken several phone calls about tickets on that part of my shift. But maybe my karma broke the phone like it had on the printer.
Anyway ... the phone wasn't working Wednesday -- so I took no ticket calls all during my shift. In fact, I didn't sell any tickets the entire 4 hours that I worked in the booth.
Instead, I did the overhead annoucements --all of them. It got easier as the time went on. I annouced Bingo every half hour -- in the wrong location. LOL. Not on purpose. Festival Garden Pavilion. Why can I remember it now and yesterday I said it wrong every stinkin time?
I announced registration and weigh in for the Peddle Pull -- even though I had no idea what that was at first. Diaper Derby? WTF? Someone came up to the booth and asked me when registration for the frog jumping contest was and I gave them a blank stare. Then he wanted to argue with me about it...hello! Again, only enough information to make me dangerous. No, I don't know where the Revival Baptist Church tent is! Bathrooms? Yes -- about the only thing I knew for sure. Cute Marines doing pullups? Definitely can direct an interested person in that direction. I watched a dick of a father yell at his kids for no damn good reason -- and I was nearly ready to call security on him. I don't even like kids -- but I was totally on their side of that fight. If you don't want your kids to be excited or have fun, then don't drag them out to the fair or yell at them because you're not in the mood for their exuberance dickhead. And not that it needs to be said ... but I was totally giving that guy the death stare ... and he knew it too. He glanced my way and noticed that I had the radio in my hand -- just waiting for him to do something a little more stupid than opening his mouth. I would have been on him like flies on shit -- at least in theory anyway. Every vigilant in my little jail cell.
When I was leaving on Day Two, I walked past the cow barns and watched as the farm folk get their animals all gussied up for the auction. I am by no means an animal activitist --I get the whole food thing -- unless it's senseless killing of animals. (like for example -- Whale Research in Japan -- on an endangered species) But I honestly felt a little sorry for the cows. They were all clean and smelling great, walking proudly into the sale barn as the auctioneer rattled off all their vital stats -- I wonder how many of them knew that they were going to be the main attraction at the next family BBQ? Roasted to a crisp on the grill? I almost wanted to buy one just to "save" it ... but ummm, we don't have a barn and it's not like I can keep a 1500 pound cow in the basement.
So Day three was not meant to be for me ... which I was rather sad about. Mother Nature wasn't cooperative with most of the world and I had obligations to attend to at home. I was bummed to say the least because I hadn't quite had my fill of fair-food. I really wanted just one more glass of homemade lemonade and a funnel cake. I might have even wanted another corn dog ... maybe. (even though the surgeon general now says hotdogs are worst than cigarettes) I might have wanted to attempt to answer some more questions or just people watched from the air conditioned comfort of my ticket office.
All in all ... working at the fair was a "fair" experience.
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