Carnival Season is Upon Us – How Much do You Spend on The Midway?
Spring and Summer bring out the kid in us and that means an annual trip to the carnival in town.
Oh yes. The sights and sounds of the barkers that draw you closer to the thrill rides and the food which is almost as expensive as the rides. And then there is the midway. That long avenue of trailer after trailer loaded with all kinds of goods you can win, if you are good enough and know how to beat the odds.
Meet Henry Gribbohm, the New Hampshire man who became something of a national laughing stock after he admitted to losing his 26-hundred dollar life savings on a carnival game, is flush once again. What started off with just a couple of hundred being lost on the game of chance turned into quite the story at the end of the night.
The folks behind the website CollegeHumor.com bought Gribbohm's Rastafarian banana stuffed toy - the only thing he had to show for his expensive tangle with the carny game Tubs of Fun - for the full amount he lost.
Twenty-six thousand Facebook "Likes" about the story prompted the exchange, and CollegeHumor also made good on its promise to buy him an xBox Kinect -- the device Gribbohm spent all his money trying to win -- once CollegeHumor's post on the subject topped 30,000 "Likes."
I can relate to this man and his misery. I once at a major amusement park on the east coast, spena good deal of money on a game to win my girlfriend (wife now) a huge stuffed animal. I thought she really wanted it. I did not think through the possibility that I could not get the prize in the car. Nope, he wound up in the trunk, my wallet was lighter, she was upset - yeah that is a good word for it, and the stuffed animal got lost in one of our many moves. Never again.
So have you ever spent more than you wanted on a game of "chance" at the carnival?
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