Well I can now add to my resume one more odd job. I think that up until now, I have considered the day that I spent loading chickens into a diesel truck as the most unusual day's work that I have done. Now I can add sloughing to the list. Hey, I only learned the word an hour or so ago from Gadget. Sloughing (sounds like wowing) is a carny word. It is the act of setting up or tearing down a carnival. Never again will I look at the Scrambler, or carnies in the same way.
We spent the day helping Gadget, Drill-bit, Spike, Bungee, Lizard and the rest of the crew, slough the carnival. Riley was proud to say that his first full day of work (albeit without financial remuneration) was a day of hard work; and hard work it was 11 or more hours of lifting, pulling, pushing, tugging and generally hard, back-breaking activities in the hot desert sun. We learned that all carnies get nicknames, that the names are given by others on the crew, and that it sometimes takes a little while before you get yours, but once you've got it, it sticks for good, like it or not. I also got the distinct impression that these rules only apply to the males. Riley and I haven't yet received nicknames, which I believe is a good thing, as I don't think that life as a carny is my calling.
After the sloughing was complete, Boss made Garbage Burgers for everyone. I asked one of the girls how they usually handled eating, and if it was pretty much every man for himself and that they eat a lot of ramen noodles, so garbage burgers were highly anticipated and much talked about throughout the day. A garbage burger consists of a grilled cheese sandwich for the lower bun, then bacon, ham pastrami, roast beef, a hamburger patty, and of course lettuce, tomato, onions, thousand island dressing and any other condiments that you might enjoy, such as avocado. This concoction is then all topped off with a grilled cheese sandwich for the top bun. I don't know if I would want to make a regular habit of eating garbage burgers, and apparently they are considered to be a genuine treat, as I don't think that Boss makes them more than once per season, but it all served as another significant detail in our carny experience.
It is now June 19, 2012; 1:40 pm. We didn't see any of the game booths, but they must have had some, because we did toss into one vehicle, quite a few 30 gallon sized garbage bags filled with stuffed animals. Have you ever wondered if all of those carnival "games of skill" are rigged? I don't have the answer to that, but I do know that the prize is so enticing (the prize being a lift across a big chunk of barren desert, not to mention 3 passes), that we laid down another dollar, and are taking our chances again. By that I mean, that we have not received a ride by Tuesday, as we had first hoped would happen. Now, rather than taking our loss in stride and moving on, we're rolling the dice again by spending another day in Baker, hoping to win the prize this time. Hey, yesterday was going to be a rest day but turned out to be a day of hard work. We are enjoying the company (secretly hoping to have carney nicknames bestowed upon us) and taking it easy today. We have increased our water carrying capacity by almost 2 gallons. I went over to the Great Basin National Park visitor center and dozed off twice during the movies. It's been a good day today.
All we need to find out now is where this carnival is headed and when they are leaving. One thing about Baker is that there is no cell service of any kind in town. Neither is there a pay phone in town, so Dave the boss has to drive over to Border NV to use the pay phone there, to conduct business. Border is about 15 miles from here and apparently it has no cell phone service either. Alternatively, I believe that he can drive somewhere a little farther away, where there is nothing, but he can get cell service. It's a pretty hardscrabble existence for this carnival. They are living cheek by jowl and their resources are measured by the miles that they can afford to travel to do their next show, which I believe is about 300 at this point. So the challenge is to find a community within 300 miles that is having some sort of fair or festival this weekend AND still has room for a small carnival, all without requiring too high a participation fee - especially if it must be paid up front. Then it's set it up and hope to make enough to pay the crew and get to another show, maybe even a little farther away... Everyone seems to have plenty of confidence in Dave to find a booking this weekend, so no worries! The only concern on my part is when will he find that booking, when will they head out, and will the destination make sense in our overall scheme of things.
While venturing out to the visitor center I did a few spot searches and I did find a location with a wifi signal. I guess some technology has come to Baker, but it comes slowly. At any rate, I did manage to send an email to let my poor wife know that we are okay. I will now go back to the wifi spot so that I can post the latest 2 entries to the blog. Who knows, while I'm in the neighborhood, maybe I'll go back to the visitor center for another quick nap!
Dale
Dale, for years I worked for Hot-Dog-on-a-Stick at the LA County Fair in Pomona, CA where I lived. It's the biggest county fair in the US, maybe the world. Anyway, all of us girls made a big deal of saying we weren't working for carnies, they seemed low-life to us. But, as you say, they're hard workers and someone has to do it. The carnival area at the Fair was always packed with people - part of the whole experience. And, I suppose, when they come to a little town everyone gets excited. They must love having you help and your sense of humor.
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