I Understand It

I know I said I wouldn’t, but what the hell… one more post to be truly and com­pletely caught up.

Woke up this morn­ing and got ready for the Spe­cial Olympics project. I could hardly con­tain my excite­ment. Had a solid break­fast of cold corn on the cob, made myself a Nal­gene of Gatorade (I bought the pow­der the other day), and got picked up by Jackie. We picked up Eric at the Col­leges and met up with Alan’s car, and then we were off. It’s funny how Eric’s e-​mail said, “I have no idea where Old Sac is, I hope the dri­vers know how to get there,” and he allo­cated an hour for the drive. Jackie was lead car because Alan didn’t know how to get there, either, but he passed her up at one point, so we took a round­about way to get there. But were still on time, so that’s cool.

On the way up from the park­ing struc­ture, Mommy Tang was about to try to go up a down esca­la­tor. Every­one yelled at me for stop­ping her short of get­ting on it, but later she got me a bag of candy from Sweet Fac­tory, so I think I made the right call.

We met up with Lau­rie, the con­tact, and she gave us an overview of the Duck Regatta and what we were sup­posed to do. For those of you that don’t know, we’ll be sell­ing these ducks for the next two weeks. Well, I guess “sell­ing” isn’t the right term, since we want peo­ple to “adopt” the rub­ber duck­ies. Quote comes from just that issue. (Par­don me for jump­ing out of chronol­ogy for a moment.)

Yeah, doesn’t really sound like “adopt­ing,” does it?

But yeah, to con­tinue, we get peo­ple to adopt these rub­ber duck­ies, and then on August 6^th, we release them all from the I Street Bridge and let them float down to the Tower Bridge, where oil booms fun­nel them into cages, and the first five into the cage win prizes. So it’s a glo­ri­fied and cut­si­fied raf­fle, really.

Lau­rie took off after ask­ing us sev­eral times if we were “pumped” and we all droned, “yes,” back to her. I don’t think she was very con­vinced. Oh yeah, and I for­got to men­tion that she told us our group goal would be to sell 500 ducks today, so that meant seventy-​five ducks per per­son! It shouldn’t be a prob­lem, though, because peo­ple love Spe­cial Olympics. And they tend to buy Quack Packs (sets of five) and Quacker’s Dozens (sets of twelve, obviously).

I think we were all a bit intim­i­dated, but we did our best. It was pretty rough for some of us at first, espe­cially those who aren’t really used to giv­ing sales pitches, but I think it got eas­ier after we all got numbed to rejec­tion, as well as pick­ing up on what works and what doesn’t work. Mommy Tang was a beast and sold almost the same as the rest of us com­bined. Kevin was also very pop­u­lar, earn­ing a solid sec­ond place.

Around noon, started send­ing peo­ple off in groups of three to take a lunch break and move cars, since there was only one free park­ing per­mit for two cars, so we had to keep val­i­dat­ing and mov­ing the sec­ond car. Peo­ple took a bit longer than I would have liked for their breaks, but I can’t say I blame them for want­ing to stay out of the triple-​digit heat.

Eric and I were the last to take breaks, and although I wasn’t hun­gry, I knew I had to force myself to eat, so I got some Panda Express, since they have the largest drink cups in all of Fast-​food-​dom. Oh, and my for­tune cookie said, “Make those spe­cial tal­ents you have work like a charm.”

Back to the grinder after that. I think sales were at their low­est in the after­noon heat. And peo­ple got ruder, too. I mean, it’s cool if you don’t want to buy a duck, but there was a cou­ple stand­ing next to our tent heck­ling us for a good hour. What the hell is your prob­lem that you make fun of vol­un­teers try­ing to raise money for Spe­cial Olympics?!

I tried to make sure every­one was cycling so they all got breaks in the shade, they all got enough to drink, and just were as happy as could be in the sit­u­a­tion. Lau­rie col­lected our sales at 4 (we had sold ninety-​eight ducks at that point), and took off. We were sup­posed to stay until 5, when the Bridge to Bridge Fes­ti­val offi­cially ended. (We sold another twelve ducks in that time, mak­ing a grand total of 110. Only slightly less than our goal of 500.)

Cool ran­dom stuff I noticed at the fes­ti­val… the Wild Bill cars. Star­bucks’ Green Tea Frap. And of course, the stunt tank we were set up next to. They had an act called the “Human Torch” where a diver wear­ing a 100% cot­ton suit put on a cape that had been soaked in gaso­line, climbed ten meters into the air, was lit on fire by a small explo­sive, and then jumped into a pool. They also had a dif­fer­ent guy dive from twenty meters. Keep in mind this is all into a portable pool about ten feet deep.

So yeah, when the project ended, we just kinda threw every­thing back into the plas­tic bins that Lau­rie had under the table, and then folded up the table and left it there. I’m sur­prised she didn’t want to take the stuff with her. Kinda want to see if the stuff will be there tomor­row. Back to the cars and the magic that is air con­di­tion­ing as quickly as our sore and, in some cases, burned legs would take us.

Oh, and some advice for peo­ple sell­ing ducks in the future… try to have change to break a $20. The Rio City Café, which we were next to, got sick of us ask­ing. (They must have bro­ken at least $100 for us in the span of two hours, so I don’t blame them.) Small restau­rants in the area were too stingy to give us their small bills. So yeah, if you come with $5s and $10s, life will be eas­ier for you. Unless you actu­ally get peo­ple who want to buy Quack Packs or Quacker’s Dozens. And believe me, those are few and far between. Also, keep track of your change, because I lost the $20 I was using.

Any­ways, back to Davis. I was still freak­ing hot, so I sug­gested going swim­ming. Went home to change into trucks, and I picked up Thu H and Drew on the way. We met Jackie already in the Chap­ar­ral pool and hung out there for over an hour. Oh, and Diana Pham was there hav­ing a BBQ with some friends. Mommy Tang stopped by to say hi to us, but didn’t say hi to her.

After swim­ming, every­one but me was hun­gry. Dropped Drew off at his place, since he was going to Hot Pot City with a bunch of folks. Jackie, Thu H, and I show­ered and then went to IHOP in Dixon. They ate, I sat and chilled with them.

Back to my place, and as Jackie dropped me off, Jason G was in my dri­ve­way, so I stood out­side and chat­ted with him for a while. Even­tu­ally he went home to do some more home­work, and I went inside and took care of some ser­vice stuff. Then I wrote post after post after post.

And now I think I’m going to go pass out. Good night, all!

Oh, one thing I for­got to men­tion… no hives at all today! I car­ried pills around all day just in case, and never had to use them. OK, good night for real now!

Tags: Food, Friends, Jason G, Thu H, Work