The Man Who Went to the Carny

There was a man that was legendary in carny circles during the late 70s and early 80s. His name was Ted Ghoul. You may ask the question why he was such a legend in carny circles during this time, which is a very good question. The reason is complex which is the reason why I have decided to write this story to explain the reason why. So let us begin. 

​For Ted his infatuation with carnies started at a very young age when he grew up on a farm and during the summers of the 1950s there was nothing to do so he would peddle his bike from the farm to the carny where he became captivated by the bright lights and excitement on the dull prairies. He didn't like the rides, but he liked the freak shows and once in a while if you played your cards right you could get a quick sneak peek in one of the skin shows. But what he liked the most about the carny were the games which were so hard to win at because they were rigged. Ted liked the idea of trying to figure out how to un-rig the games. But when he figured out how to do this they banned him from playing and winning prizes.

Life carried on and Ted went to university, he married and had kids. It was in the late seventies when he took his children to the city carny that came every summer. This renewed his interest in carny games. Then one day he decided to go to the carny all by himself to take a closer look at the newer carny games. Many were dart based and ball based. He played one of the dart games and noticed that the darts would not stick in the backboard. He played a round of twenty darts at the carny and stole three darts so he could take them home for further inspection. The other game that caught his eye was a game where you attempt to lift a beer bottle off its side into the upright position with a stick that had a string hanging from it and on the end of this string was a ring. It was this ring that you had to fish around with to bring the bottle back into the upright position. It was tricky but Ted was able to replicate the game at home and he practised and practised until he could lift the bottle every time.

He then inspected the darts he stole and he realized they were dull and balanced in a way that made them back heavy which changed the way the dart flew the air. Conventional darts had their weight in the front of the dart which made them stick to the dart board. Again the solution was to practice,  practice, and practice with the darts against a harder board. 

It was now time for Ted to put his theory into practice and he headed off to the carny. He went to the bottle raise game and he won on the first shot and walked away with a huge stuffed animal. He left the carny and got his hand stamped to return later. He came back to the bottle came and there was a different game operator. Ted played again and won again. Then there was flash that came from somewhere but he didn't know what it was.

The next day he went back and that was when he figured out what the flash was from. His picture was up at every carny game with the note under saying, "Banned". They had caught on quick. 

Ted went home that night realizing that the same problem he had in the 1950s existed today. The carnies had the right to limit you playing the games if you started to win. Mastering the game was only half the problem. The other half was to be able to keep playing without being caught. He spent the night raking his mind for ideas trying to figure out how to keep playing. It was so obvious, too obvious to be true. 

Disguises. Different clothes, shoes, wigs, moustaches, voices etc. 

His plan worked for a couple of days but the whole time that Ted was doing it he could not shake the feeling that they were on to him. He was paranoid of not only the carnies working the games but also the security at the entrances but he had developed a system that worked. There was only five days left in the carny and the chance for Ted to really clean up and win a ton of stuffed animals. He had parked his car near the carny, but in a remote area. When he would win a stuffed animal he would leave through a different gate than what he had come in through. He would go to his car, drop off the stuffed animal inside, change disguises and go back through one of the entrance gates. He was careful each time he left the carny to make sure he was not being followed back to his car. That day he had won 15 stuffed animals but he could only fit one more in his car, so changed his outfit one last time and looked for a dart game that he hadn't already won at or one that had a new worker that couldn't recognize him through the disguise. Over time the carnies were getting suspicious and they were sharp at picking out cheaters because they were the ones who invented cheating. He came to a dart game with an unfamiliar carny working it and just as he paid his money security arrested Ted and threw him out. As they put the handcuffs on Ted the carny took off a wig, a moustache and pulled out fake teeth. It was a carny Ted had seen earlier. He was wearing a disguise to fool Ted. The carny smiled at Ted as security led him to the exits.