Carnival Games

When I was a kid the carnival would come to town once a year. It would set up in the little park by the river, and on one very special day all of the weird looking carnie campers would roll into town and park by the river. Greasy old men would emerge and start cobbling together rickety looking rides and dingy games. All of the kids would get excited though, hanging out near the fringes of the park and watching the entire thing get set up. Finally the weekend would roll around and we’d persuade our parents to let us go to the carnival alone, mainly to check things out and try to talk to girls.

We’d eventually ride some of the rickety rides which would try to loosen up all of the cotton candy we’d invariably just eaten, but the carnival rides weren’t very scary. It was the carnival games that were scary. You could try to avoid the gauntlet of carnival games, but eventually you’d have to walk through it and get leered and jeered by all of the carnies in the booths. “Come try your luck! Everybody’s a winner! Look how easy it is just there!” All of the carnival games were deceptively simple, and eventually we were all talked into giving them a try to win a gargantuan stuffed animal or a bike. We lost, of course, since the things were nearly impossible. It was a hard lesson to learn though, since year after year we lost our money in the carnival games and had nothing to show for it. On the few occasions when we did win something it would end up to be tiny and we’d pay $4 for a $.50 squirt gun. Eventually I ended up avoiding the murderer’s row of carnival games altogether, feeling uncomfortable ignoring the yells of the carnies but not wanting to lose any more money.

Now that I’m a little older and (hopefully) wiser I’ve realized that most of the carnival games, if not unwinnable, are pretty close to it. For example, the basketball-shooting games are usually played with over inflated balls and small or oval rims, so if you want a shot you need to shoot with a high arc and drop the ball into the hoop without hitting the backboard or the rim. If you’re trying the BB-Gun, shoot-out-the-star game, good luck, since it’s one of the hardest on the midway. You may have a chance with the balloon-popping darts, though the darts are dull and the balloons under inflated. Shoot for the balloons near the edges and you’ve got the best odds out of any carnival games on the midway.