Rewinding the Eighties: Working at a Carnival

The Humor of Carnivals in the Eighties

A carnival used to arrive at the local vacant grass lot every spring in my hometown. I only lived a few blocks away from it and let me tell you this was a weird thing.

Every night hundreds of people walked past my house to the carnival then trudged back the other way a few hours later, coming down off their cotton candy highs and burdened with all the cheap stuffed animals, coke mirrors, and wall tapestries.

I could hear the sounds and the rides like I was living next to Six Flags for a week.

A fun thing I liked to do was head over to the carnival early in the morning and look under the rides for change. One time I found a joint in a cigarette pack and I sold it to an older kid I knew for a couple bucks. See most kids would have smoked it, but not me. I never saw the value of the Mary Jane.

Then I went to college.

But unfortunately reality and responsibility take over once you graduate and the days of smoking and drinking are replaced with diaper changing, play dates, and pumpkin picking. Unless you are Brittany Spears.

Speaking of responsibility, one of my first jobs was working at the carnival. I was fifteen and Van Halen’s ‘1984‘ was all over the radio.

Seriously, I think that was the only music played at the carnival that year. Hell, even the Flying Bobs ride (Himalaya for some of you) put aside the standards like ‘The Stroke‘ and ‘Hell’s Bells‘ for non-stop repeats of ‘Hot for Teacher‘ and ‘Jump‘.

The honest game of chance I worked at was the classic ‘throw the dart at the balloon‘ one. Of course the darts were crafted from the finest plastic and the tips weren’t bent to like a twenty-degree angle. Just like the milk bottles that are not made from cement. And the live goldfish you win as a prize from that stupid floating duck game isn’t suicidal as this past humor post pointed out.

I better stop now because the carnival industry will not be happy I am divulging their secrets.
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Don’t forget to check out the political humor cartoon US Voter Jokes for funny jokes that the politicians tell behind our backs.

Humor-blogs.com would never cheat you in a game of chance but the funny blogs you will find there are like a fun carnival ride or a cheap hooker. I haven’t figured out which one yet.

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