So, now that my introduction is out of the way, here comes some stories.

I will have to say, this is probably my favourite so far. As very few people know, there are indeed families that work at the carnival, this means that their children travel with them and everything (although if you paid attention you would know this). At my carnival, we have a cute little nine year old girl, and as we were walking from the backyard to the lemonade stand, me out of uniform and her in her pajamas, we hear this girl behind us pipe up saying "Help! The carnies are trying to attack me!" as she hugged tight to her boyfriend. The little girl turned back and just gave her this glare, stopping us both in our tracks, before saying to the same ignorant girl who piped up, "I'm a carny." and that was all that it took to make that girl look more ashamed than I am sure she has ever looked in her life. I gave her a pat on the back and told her I was proud of her, as she told me that she wanted to kick her in the shin and give her a reason to say the carnies are attacking.

I think I like this story because people are ignorant, just like that girl who was walking behind us. People think that carnies are bad people because of what they see on T.V. Did you ever think of the fact that these same people bring their children to the fair, purposefully surrounding them with this dreadfully, horrible people? Just because someone is a lawyer doesn't make them a liar and a thief just because some lawyers are.

I will say right now, the carny life is what that is worth valuing. We work harder than you can possibly imagine. Our work days are anywhere from 10am to 12pm, sometimes more sometimes less. When we say we "push iron", we are not using it as a figure of speech, we are on our feet for full days, often times without breaks and no, there are no shifts, we all work, all day. So next time you want to talk ill of all carnies (or all lawyers), just remember, not all of us are bad...in fact, the majority of us are unbelievable great people that you would be lucky to call your friend, because we are loyal people who have eachothers back, no matter what.

So, let me introduce myself;

The name is Red,
I am 25 years old,
I am originally from Florida and have also lived in Louisiana,
I am an Aries,
I am currently single,
I am a lesbian,
I am Cherokee and Blackfoot,
I am Norse Viking,
I love Swan Queen and,
I am a Slytherin.

Just some basics on me. Now, I have been working in the food industry since I was 18 years old (2008) and have worked in child care as well as volunteered at daycares since I was 11. Now, 25 years old, I had already been homeless twice, I was on the verge of being homeless a third time, and I had no job, no matter how many applications I put in. I was living in Louisiana at the time, Shreveport to be exact, and I went down south to Laplace to meet one of my online friends while she was there. It didn't take long before my friends (since I am not dumb enough to meet someone online by myself) were offered jobs and I soon decided, after spending a few nights there, that I wanted to join. It took a while to make up my mind because I did have other options, but none as guaranteed as this one was, but I decided that this was the life for me. Travel, fried food, co-workers that would also become my friends (I was accepted into the family right away), one guy even took on the challenge of getting with me, and therefore we assume he is going to be getting a sex change...still waiting to see how this turns out lol. The lights, the music, the smell...all of this reminded me of my childhood, of growing up, good memories, I wanted this to be my present.

I don't know how long I am going to do this for, it could last a couple months, it could last a couple years, it could last as long as the rest of the season (which is another two weeks), but life is a adventure and it is when you learn to embrace that adventure that life is beautiful.

I don't have many stories to tell, but I am going to write in this blog to keep a memoir for myself, and so that anyone who is interested in what life as a carny is actually like, because the stereotypes are far from true.