The weird

[fbhjr]

Friday my wife ordered pizza for the folks who had done  the set up for us.
She and I waited out by the road to give the guy his money, but he snuck in
the other entrance and got there without us seeing him.
We paid him, and he got in his car.  It wouldn’t start because he was out
of gas.
blue_micha offered her gas can and a ride to the gas station,
but he wanted to “find some around.”  (Perhaps inspired by Beverly
Hillbillies where it comes up out of the ground.)
So, he started walking around asking people if they had extra gas on them.
I guess he saw the lawn mowers and such and thought there must be some.
But, there wasn’t.
Finally I borrowed blue_micha’s car and drove him to the
station.
He seemed really put out by it.
But, my wife gave him $20 in tip, plus the cost of the pizza itself.
I think it was a bit presumptuous to expect to get free gas on top of that.

Then there were the firemen there.
We had hired an EMT for the day.  It seemed to be a good precaution even if
the biggest thing he did all weekend was tell some moron to drink water or
they’ll get dehydrated.  Personally I don’t think that was worth $420, but
better safe than sorry.
The really weird stuff was for the fire show.
This started with the fire chief giving us the permit.
“You’re stage plan says you’ve got drums on stage, but it doesn’t say how
big they are or what they’re full of!”
Yes, that is an actual quote.
Apparently the idea we’d use musical instruments in a fire show didn’t
occur to him.
He insisted that he have a fireman there an hour before the show to watch
us set up and an hour after the show to watch us break down.
They clearly didn’t understand the nature of our show.
Saturday when the fireman showed up, he came over to me.
“Should I call one of the fire trucks down here in case you set the forest
on fire?” He asked me.
“I really don’t think that is necessary,” I said.  “We’ve never set
anything like that on fire before and have done hundreds of shows.”
“But, think of the buildings!  If they catch on fire they will be very hard
to put out!”
“Yes, that’s true,” I said.  “But, we’re not going to be very close to the
buildings and nothing we have carries anywhere near that far.  I’m not
saying it is impossible, but it is very, very unlikely.”
“I think I should bring THE WATER CANNON!”  Yes, he did his best to
actually verbalize capital letters when saying it.
“I don’t think it is worth bringing in any extra equipment,” I said.  I was
very worried that there would be a back charge for the whole town’s fire
department coming down to the show.
“I think it would be best if I had THE WATER CANNON with me,” he said.
“You must do what you feel is right of course.”  (Yes, I did quote Kenobi
to him.  He didn’t seem to notice.)
When we were getting ready he walked down the hill with a big metal fire
extinguisher.
“I have brought THE WATER CANNON,” he said, setting it down.
“Oh, that’s what you meant,” I said, pointing to ours.  “We already had one
of those.”
He looked over at our collection of fire extinguishers, including our own
“water cannon”, our fire proof blankets and the buckets of water along the
sides of the stage.
“You guys seem to be well prepared,” he said.
“We do this a lot,” I said.
Nothing went wrong with the show.  I was certainly not disappointed by
that, but I do wonder about the two guys from the fire department and their
cannon.  They walked off after the show without saying anything about it.
But, day 2 they were back with the cannon again.
Maybe they felt the need to justify us spending $300 for safety equipment
we already had.

And, there was the sign problem.
My wife went to the town and asked what it would take to have the faire.
They sent her to the fire department as described above.
So, it was a bit strange when we were told that although we had permits for
the faire, for the fire show, for parking people there, we hadn’t been told
we needed permits to put up signs to the show.
We put them up anyhow.
Apparently there was a fee for that no one told us about, so we hadn’t paid
it.
The owner of the property said there might be a fine for it.  So far
nothing has shown up.  Hopefully it won’t.
But, this has the feel of a small town speed trap to me.
“Oh, this is what you need to put on your show, pay these fees and talk to
these people.”
Then:
“You didn’t say you wanted to put up signs saying where it was, you’ve got
to pay a fine for not getting the permit!”
It just seems to me that signs would be something you’d expect for a show.
Or, you’d at least ask if someone was going to need them.
If we do it again, we know.

Comments

[pallid-regina.livejournal.com]

It's possible the only thing that would have made the fire show better was seeing one of the firemen lose his mind and hose one of you down with THE WATER CANNON.

AAAAAHHHHHH THINK OF THE FOREST!!!!!

Is it wrong to think that?

LOL!

[temperlj.livejournal.com]

I think at any point the fire team might have *rushed* the fireman to make it happen Saturday.

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

it would have been amusing to see them mistakenly pull the trigger on THE WATER CANNON, but really, there might have been a fee.