When I was a kid, early spring invariably meant that a seedy “carnival” would set up shop at Webster Square Plaza, Main South Worcester’s equivalent of a mall.
The Plaza wasn’t very fancy – the anchor tenants were Zayre’s and Woolworth’s – but when it opened, when I was eight or nine, it opened up an entirely new world. No longer would shopping be something that you got on the bus once or twice and went “down city” to do, dressed up in your Sunday best. (Not that we didn’t have some shopping that we could do as kids on our own. You could go to Morris Market for your mother. Or go on your own to Sol’s for a candy bar, or Carrera’s for penny candy.)
But the opening of Webster Square Plaza meant that you could go with your friends to Woolworth’s and buy your very own Bobbsey Twin books, or Christmas presents for the entire family. It meant that, for Mother’s Day you could go to Putnam’s and get your mother a fancy flowered tea cup.
And it also meant the carnival.
Just as The Plaza wasn’t much of a shopping center, the spring carnival wasn’t much of a carnival: a couple of food trucks selling cotton candy and fried dough; a couple of sad sack games; a few rides: a Tilt-a-Whirl and the flying swings. A rag-tag, seedy little carnival from somewhere in the Deep South, working the northern clime once spring sprung. But the biggest attraction, as far as I was concerned, was the presence of the carnival workers, folks who my father dismissed as carnie bums. To me, they were so completely and utterly exotic, not to mention a bit scary – I remember one guy with a dirty fedora and a huge goiter – I was in heaven. Here were the kind of folks I read about in books like Blue Willow, and saw in The Grapes of Wrath: poor, itinerant, and most certainly not Catholic.
Carnies came to mind when I read the other day about a carnival in New Hampshire where some poor schnook managed to blow his life savings – $2,600 – trying to win an Xbox Kinect (retail: $300-400) by tossing a couple of softball in a bucket.
I will forego using the fellow’s name – he’s going to have a hard enough time living down those Google search results without my heaping on – so let’s just call him Mr. X.
Here’s what happened to him:
At first, he was only in for $300 worth of ball-tossing loss, in a game called Tubs of Fun, where you pay $5 to toss balls into a tilted bucket. After losing three large, Mr. X went home to get his life savings, $2,300, which was sounds as if it were conveniently at home, under a mattress or in the ice cube tray. Back at the carnival, he started doubling down. So it didn’t take him all that long to lose his entire fortune.
But as Mr. X kept playing – baby needs a new pair of Xboxes – he claims that the person running the game (a.k.a., the carnie bum) told him that he was “going to get all his money back.” And win an Xbox. Neither of which happened.
He returned to the carnival, run by Fiesta Shows, the
next day to complain, and the game operator gave him $600 and a large stuffed banana with a hat and dreadlocks. The operator said that was "all they could do" for him, [Mr. X] told the [Manchester] Union Leader. (Source: Huffington Post.)
Well, there is a sucker born every day. So I guess Mr. X just had the ill luck to be the sucker born on the day he arrived on planet earth.
And – even worse ill luck for Mr. X – he hadn’t brushed up on Tubs of Fun before he dashed back to the fair with his nest egg. If only he’d been a wise investor and researched Tubs of Fun, he might have found:
… a book called "Carnival Fraud Investigations 101" [that] details how the "Tubs of Fun" game fools patrons: A carnival employee places a ball into the bucket, then invites potential players to toss one in. With the first ball weighing the bucket down, the practice ball stays in the bucket easily.
When the game begins, however, the employee removes both balls, and without the weight of the first ball, most tosses bounce out of the bucket.
It’s Mr. X’s next step, however, that I believe will haunt him the rest of his life. Mr. X went public. He:
… filed a report with Manchester police.
"It will be assigned to the detective division, but where it goes from here is uncertain right now," said Manchester police Lt. Mike Hurley. "It may be difficult to track the people down, because I believe they may be from out of state, but the detectives will get started on it this week. We'll see how it plays out." (Source: Manchester Union Leader.)
Good that the Manchester PD has nothing bigger on their plate than tracking down a schnook who got suckered, but are they really going to solve this kinda-maybe-sorta crime?
And if they do find the fast-talked who fast talked Mr. X out of $2.6K? Won’t this just be a case of Mr. X say – carnie bum say?
I’m pretty certain that if I had spent a net of $2K ($2.6K minus the $600 Mr. X got back) on a ball-tossing game and ended up with a stuffed banana – however winning the dreadlocks are - I don’t think I’d be going public with it. But Mr. X is, I guess, trying to serve a higher purpose.
[Mr. X] said he hopes by getting his story out there, he may help someone avoid being swindled.
"Since Saturday, I've seen stories on the internet about this," said [Mr. X]. "It's happened to a lot of people."
Interesting, the outfit that ran the fair to remember, which is a local outfit that runs most of the fairs in New England, including the wonderful Topsfield Fair, doesn’t actually run the Tubs of Fun. It’s outsourced to another company. Although in Fiesta Show’s own words:
Fiesta Shows carries a full line-up of exciting midway games. Our games are fun, easy to play and fair.
We believe it's important to provide games that award a high quality prize to just about every player! We feature many play to you win games which guarantee a prize to every player.
Fiesta Shows' distinguished history in the gaming business allows us to set a standard that all our game concessionaires must follow. We believe the happiest customers are the winning customers and the winners will generate more players. (Source: Fiesta Shows)
I do not believe that Mr. X would agree that the games are all that fair, and I can’t imagine that this brouhaha will “generate more players.”
Meanwhile, back at New Hampshire’s paper of record, the Manchester Union Leader, Mr. X – or someone who’s expropriated his name – is adding to the commenting fray, pushing back at those who are calling him God's (or P.T. Barnum’s) fool:
in response to these absolutely ridiculous comments, i have never been to a carnival , and with there motto fun, fair, and friendly you never expect a legal business to openly scam you and work in unicin with other workers to take your money . so yes i may have been naive to the concept of carny scams but being that it was a legal ligitament business i wasnt looking for it there . so for once in my life i wasnt looking for it, they smooth talked me to the fullest extent and blantenly lied to me convincing me i would get all my $ back plus prize and x box . then asked if once i got all my money back would i tip him out well.THIS IS AN AABSOLUTLY UNACCEPTABLE BUSINESS PRACTICE IN NH. IT IS ILLEGAL IMMORAL AND AN OUTRIGHT SCUMBAG MOVE. so for all the ladies and gentlmen supporting this type of buisness practice,this is not foxwood,nor a gambling resort.this is a childrens carnavle.i might have had the extra means to get further in with these conmen,but these scams r designed for swindeling ur child out of there summer job savings so it dont take a rocket scientist to figure that these ciomments r coming from these carnys tthat pulled these scummy scams,freinds their of.or just didnt consider the fact that ur neice or nephew,son or daughter could ,would,or just became the next person to lose it all under completly false pretenses.so i look forward to hearing people defend this scummy behavior.have a good day ladies and gentlmen
And on and on…
Mr. X, Mr. X, Mr. X. I understand the desire to keep doubling down, but there’s a point where you’re throwing good money after bad, and you went way, way, way beyond that point.
But to triple down?
As I said, if this had been me, I would not be going public with my folly.
Perhaps, however, Mr. X is right. Maybe he ends up on TV. Or with a book contract, a made for TV movie, a crusade to shut down rigged games of chance.
But I can’t help but think that, even if he does get his money back, even if he does get an Xbox Kinect, even if he does get to keep the Rastafarian banana, going public is not the smartest thing that Mr. X will ever do in his life.
Good luck living this one down, Mr. X.
Or, as your banana might say, Jah mon!
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