So it’s not like I have enough to do, what with the dozen train club activities (two nights a week), the book stuff (the club I’ll be speaking at, the UCF festival, and the library speech). No, nothing to do. So somehow, I ended up getting drafted into work’s picnic committee.

And where are we holding it? On top of a parking garage.

The idea is that each of the three orgs gets 30 parking spots to decorate as they see fit. And there will be activities, food, all sorts of stuff. Fun fun fun!

And not only am I on the org’s setup group, I’m in charge of overall setup.

So let’s be clear about this – the people laboring to bring this about call this the “moon landing”. Why? The parking garage is flat and hard. Duct tape doesn’t stick. You can’t drive in any nails. There is no shade. How can we possibly decorate something like this?

Worse, being in charge of setup, I gotta get there at 6am to chalk the areas for the food, the activities, the teams, everything. And run power cords. And tape down those cords. Someone else said he was on the setup committee, but he’s “gotta drop his daughter off at school” – look for him about 9am.

Our org is going with a carnival midway idea. a combination of Mardi Gras and a fair. There will be six games, a trophy, and some guy in front doing the barker trick, getting the crowds in and handing out score tickets.

Wanna guess who the barker is? Yes, after all that setup, I’ll be manning the front of the carny for four hours (temperatures projected in the upper eighties tomorrow). I’ll be cutting the spiel with a tophat and cane. And we’ll be moving them through (hopefully), trying to get people to play our games.

How did I get roped into this?

My car is full of concrete slabs right now (in case we need to hold down our tents). It’s also got chalk, tape, a knife, a little fan, a power strip, the setup diagrams, and 200′ of extension cords.

Wonder how this is going to go.

Tune in tomorrow.