All week I've been forcing myself to go outside after my wife gets home to "take advantage of living in the city." When we lived in NC I used to complain that there was nothing to do so this week I dedicated my life to finding "man stuff" to do after she gets off. Yesterday the mentally challenged idea popped into my head that I should go back down memory lane and hit up the carnival over at Capital Plaza. What the hell was I thinking?
Even as a teenager I stayed away from DC carnivals at night unless I was just looking to play the Matrix. (You're telling me I can dodge bullets? No, when you're ready... you won't have to.) It was fifty degrees last night and, like roaches, I figured that was about ten degrees colder than most of these bad ass kids are willing to tolerate. I was right. The place was deserted. I felt bad for the carnival people though.
The saddest sight in the world is an empty carnival. It was like watching the tears of a clown with all those people sitting on their own rides and games staring at me like "play me!" I would've if that place didn't look so damned dirty. I didn't even trust the canned sodas. Then I felt old as hell because I couldn't bring myself to get on a ride. Tickets were a $1.25 a piece and the cheapest ride was the swings for four tickets. I'm not paying $5 to let a giant centrifuge fling me to my death. Those raggedy ass chains holding that thing up looked like a bike lock chain and the fact that it looked like it was made out Lego and Duplo blocks didn't help sway my opinion either.
There were two guys working on one of the ferris wheel gondolas with a crowbar. They saw me and said, "We're open buddy!" Umm, no the hell you aren't. I decided to leave after one time around but in order to get out I had to walk past all the games. That's the most desperate part of the carnival. They're like washed up hookers trying to solicit a john. "Look man, I'm thirty years old. I don't wanna play no damn duck game. Get away from me." For a brief (and I do mean brief) moment I considered winning something to take home to my daughter, but every prize looked like something you'd buy in a crack house garage sale. Nothing was completely inflated, everything was dirty and they had this balloon hammer that, because it wasn't inflated all the way, looked like a crack pipe.
I left and went to the Walmart a few feet away. 75 angry black people standing in five open lines while the "team leader" was telling two of them to shut down their registers and clock out...now that was an adventure.
[caption id="attachment_2116" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Promise me Simba, you must never go there."]
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