A Long Day At The Fair

So today was a rather long day. I was called at midnight by my boss  the night before asking which of two shifts I would like, one from 7am to 3pm or 3 pm to 11pm... I asked if I could have both, and he was thrilled. turned out I dont think I have ever been in the sun for such an extended time. My forehead got a sunburn, and after almost 17 hours, my legs feel like they are gonna fall off.

Last night had many interesting things happening. When I got there at 7am, I was on the same gate that I was on the night before.  Nothing much happened for the first part of my rather long shift. About 3pm they switched my to being a "Roamer" a person who just wonders around, looking for stuff, bringing water to the other guards, finding lost children, listening for trouble calls from the other guards to back them up, and responding to the break calls of other guards. I did this for a few hours, it was fun. I got to drive around a golf cart filled with cold water to make sure the other guards stayed hydrated.

I also helped find 4 lost children for the night. in total we had 24 lost children this night. One parent we decided needed to be shot with a taser (Just Kidding). She lost her two children (Who were standing in line for a ride, the parent wandered away) We found the children a few minutes later exiting the ride. Rejoined with her children everything was alright, we thought. Just a few minutes later, the same woman came back to us, she had lost them again. This time they all had gone to the restroom, and when she was done, she didn't wait around for her two boys, she just started looking at all the displays until she realized she was nowhere near the restrooms anymore. By the time she had come to report them missing the two boys had also found a guard and was standing by, figuring she would report them missing. Grrr, some people!!! Anyway...

I asked my Supervisor if I could be on the team of guards for the special event tonight, which he agreed to. That was awesome because it was a demolition derby! I love those, so it was cool that not only did I get to see it, but unlike everyone else who spent $23.00 to be there, I was being paid to be there. Just in case something happened. :0)

After the derby, I was stationed at a different gate. It was the gate that all the vendors were going to line up at to get back in to finally tear down their booths. I was told not to allow anyone on with a vehicle. I was also told "Tell them NO! and keep telling them NO until we tell you that you can tell them yes" This part of the night was kind of boring until we spotted a creature trying to leave without a release form. It was a Black Widow spider, and it was about 4 inches across, counting the legs of course. This being a highly poisonous creature we had to protect the park patrons. So Another guard and I tried to "escort" it off the park walkways, but that just kept making it madder and madder. It started shooting webs out at the stick and leather straps we were trying to use to get it to move. It struck out at the stick a couple times. Then one couple and their 6 year old boy came thru the gates. The mother asked what were doing, and when we told her, she grabbed her cemera phone to take a couple shots. Her boy ran over and grabbed mom's leg. when he saw the spider, he screamed," I LOVE SPIDERS" and ran twards it to try and pick it up. we stopped him from getting close enough to pick it up, but not close enough for him to stick out his leg and stomp on it. While stomping on it he yelled,"SQUISH!" And that was the end of the last interesting thing for this shift.