College students think they're so smart.
And why not? We spend most of our days in class, or studying for class, or coming up with reasons why we didn't do the first two. We are a sophisticated, educated and cultured people, who are surely going to graduate from this fine institution of higher learning and claim a valuable and rewarding job in the field of our choice.
However, there is one group that will surely outsmart us at every turn: carnival folk, or "carnies," if you prefer.
I learned this lesson the hard way. A friend invited me to an Italian festival out in Peoria recently. I figured it would be an intellectually stimulating exploration of the human condition, like the HBO series "Carnivale," but instead it was unpleasant and painful, like the HBO series "Arli$$."
There is something about a fair or carnival atmosphere that has an impairing quality that leaves you with judgment cloudier than an old lady's cataract. Rationally, I know that I have no interest, use or need for a giant plush Garfield in a wizard's outfit, but at the time I coveted it like it was my neighbor's wife.
The better part of valor might have been to simply not participate in the obviously rigged games of "skill" that yielded rather unimpressive prizes, but I was determined to show these carnies who's boss, and in a way, I guess I did (it was them).
The first game we were enticed to play was simply a matter of throwing a ball into a big bucket. Easy stuff, right? Get a couple of those babies in and you'll have an oversized Spongebob Squarepants in no time. The deceptively toothless carnie, or "festival game operator" or whatever politically correct term one might use, assured us that we could win big. The first warning sign probably should have been that even the carnie, while "shilling" the game, couldn't get it in the bucket more than 10 percent of the time.
This didn't stop us. Some time and $20 later, we had a tiny stuffed dragon to call our own.
The next game seemed even simpler. In this game, all you had to do was roll a Wiffle ball onto a backboard, into a bucket. So my friend tried it, at something like $5 for three balls.
After some bargaining, the carnie offered to move the basket further away from the backboard, thus increasing the chance of victory and exposing his own scam. We took him up on his offer, at $5 more for three more balls. Yet still we were unable to meet the challenge.
It was obviously time to cut my losses and walk away, admitting defeat while I still had some cash left.
It was at that moment that the carnie offered up his final gambit -- he would keep the basket moved all the way out, and let me climb over the railing and bounce the ball from about a foot away. One shot, for a mere $10. I took him up on his offer, knowing that the huge, ugly stuffed dragon would be mine, and I could slay him in my bedroom whenever I was bored.
I missed the basket completely.
The carnies had the last laugh on that day.
What these carnies lacked in hygiene, social skills and teeth, they made up for in a type of education that you simply can't get at our fancy colleges. They've been outfoxing us allegedly "educated" people for decades, and it'll continue for decades more.
But at least I don't have to find a place for a stupid stuffed Garfield in my room.
Albert Ching is a carnival management junior with a minor in dragon slaying. Reach him at albert.ching@asu.edu.
