Carnival

Carnival

Off to the carnival. One of the few of these types of things I’ve ever enjoyed as a child.

My most dreaded, of course, circuses. I was afraid of clowns and terrified for the high wire acts. My heart ached for the elephants so far away from where they should be living free, and you were trapped sitting there in your seat watching it all, beginning to end. Well, at least with my family you were.

Parades, a close second. Stand for hours in the freezing cold or steaming heat, and as a child usually unable to see anything but a quick shot between two tall people who inevitably kept moving around and making you miss stuff that you’d hear about later and wish you saw.

Town Fairs, always hyped up, but full of everybody you know, and worst, who know you and your parents! Tattle-tales! You can’t get away with anything!

Give me a carnival any day. A bunch of people out for making a buck. They don’t play favorites. They don’t know you from Adam, but they’ll treat you as good as anybody else they can make money being nice to!

And they are nice too, and fun! Games of chance, little shows, test your skills! You can go from trying to pop a giant balloon with a dart, to watching a whole show completely acted out by socks, to trying to figure out who the figurehead behind the mask is from five clues, for all the money in the pot, which could be a dollar or a thousand dollars! They don’t tell you till it’s over. (I’m almost willing to bet, it’s never a thousand dollars.)

Yes, in my fourteen years on earth so far, I’m very comfortable saying carnivals are the best. Go to a carnival!