Riverfest: Part Deux

So as we meandered through the fair, Jennifer decided to purchase one of those wooden frogs (she really wanted a cricket but they were sold out) with ridges across its back. You move a stick across the ridges and it sounds like it’s croaking. She had to ask for lessons so the gay guy (not that there’s anything wrong with that) in the booth said, “That’s okay honey, I’m blonde too.” And he was!

Full of kettle corn and having seen our “fair” share of painted gourds, signs that said, “No sketching or photography; these items are copyrighted” (No Problem!), and wooden Santas, we decided to leave.

However, more fun was yet to come. A K-Mart existed nearby, one of the most run down, sad sack of its kind I have ever seen. (And I’ve been to two of them!) Jennifer who has dog-with-a-bone-syndrome about certain things, a malady from which every member of this side of the family appears to suffer—but manifests in different ways and which professionals call “obsessive compulsive,”—was on a tear trying to find a Halloween jigsaw puzzle. Apparently, these things no longer exist because she had already completed a nationwide search for such and this K-Mart was the only place remaining.

We entered the store only to be immediately greeted by a man handing out raffle tickets for a free gold necklace. “The drawing is in two minutes and you have to be there to win!” he said as he disappeared like the white rabbit. Then he began to yell over the store loudspeaker that the drawing was happening right now! in the furniture department. Have you ever tried to find the furniture department in a K-Mart? For some reason we felt compelled to do so! It’s one of those things that’s difficult to explain later to oneself or others. As it turned out, a couple of pieces of furniture officially constituted that location.

About ten people showed up, all with a look of utter despondency on their faces, with the exception of a little girl with her Mom and Grandmother. Some of the people had too few teeth; others had way too many. That poor jewelry representative stood behind a little white ply board podium and tried to drum up some excitement (more about drumming later). Well, as one always learns, there is no free lunch. He proceeded to ask for a show of hands to rate such and such piece of smaltzy jewelry. Then he proceeded to make a pitch for buying said jewelry at an all-time low price. And, he announced that the winner of the gold necklace worth $120 was required to yell “Whoopee!”

“Let’s get out of here,” Jennifer whispered.

“No, I’ve already wasted too much time,” I reasoned.

“May I have a drum roll?” the poor salesman sap requested.

I was standing next to several cartons full of dishes adjacent to the “furniture” department, so I accommodated him with a drum roll via the box top cartons. He seemed eternally grateful.
“Oh my God!” said Jennifer.

Then guess what! He called my ticket number. It’s the first thing I’ve ever won since—okay it’s the first thing I’ve ever won. “That’s me! Whoopee!” I declared.

He gave me the necklace, a gold chain with a crystal heart on it in a little velvet pouch. We examined it and decided that none of us would ever wear it, but it had its merits. I hunted down the little girl and gave it to her. She was absolutely thrilled and her ear-to-ear grin made it all worthwhile.

Mom enjoyed seeing that, so I told her I should have made her stand on the other side of the store during the present giving after her parasol incident. (She still had no regrets.)

Later, in the K-Mart “puzzle section” Jennifer pondered over puzzles for about half an hour, which was difficult since there were only about eight of them. If so much as an orange leaf appeared in the puzzle picture she proclaimed, “This looks like Halloween.”

“Self-deception is sad,” I told her.

So she finally picked out some puzzles, got to the counter, and decided not to buy them. “Well, that was an hour of my life that I’ll never get back,” I said as we left.

All the way home we laughed about a scenario in which I got the little girl’s phone number and called her for the rest of her life to remind her that I gave her the necklace. I’d keep asking if she still liked it, until as a grown woman she’d beg me to take it back as I requested an invitation to her wedding. It would be the gift that kept on taking.

Jennifer summed up the day: “Oh well, you’ll have a lot of good karma for giving her that necklace,” she said to me. “Mom, not so much for the parasol.”