The Halloween Carnival

One of the biggest social events of the year in Togiak is the Halloween Carnival held at the school on the Saturday before the holiday.  Luckily, this year Halloween was on a Saturday so we scheduled the fun for mid-day, giving teachers time to set up while still allowing for a sleep in.

My booth, shared with Colynn, was a game suggested to us by Tobe; Spot the Pop.  We ordered 200 mini-Tootsie Pops, 100 full size Tootsie Pops, 72 scary erasers and 72 spooky coloring books with crayons from that life-saver of teachers everywhere, Oriental Trading Company (your home for cheap plastic crap!), charging it to our classroom accounts.  Sam the principal didn't even blink when I gave him the receipt for reimbursement, even though roughly a third of the cost was shipping.

The game itself is easy.  Players pay us two tickets, pull a Tootsie Pop out of the board, if it has a mark on the stick, you won a prize in addition to the Tootsie Pop.  We scattered a few full size Pops on the board but none of them were marked.  It was my own version of the Marshmallow Test (more people will choose to eat one marshmallow immediately than wait an hour to have two) and it proved true.  The full size Pops were more likely to be picked, even when it became clear they were unmarked.

In total, we spent less than an hour prepping this game: marking the Pops (160 were marked so the odds were ever in your favor), making the board, loading it up.  I spent the most time poking the holes in the board but switched to Donna's drill when I realized the holes were too small to accommodate the sticks.  The drill made it super easy, which was good, because both Colynn and I were sick.  She has strep throat, and I have an undiagnosed sore throat, fever and one of the worst non-migraine headaches I have ever had.  We joked that our booth may give an unexpected surprise in the form of infection.  I told her while we set up that our booth was so lame it was scary, getting a big laugh from this generally quiet understated Yupik woman.

It turned out that our game was the perfect slow burn.  It took a bit for kids to give it a try because it was so low key, compared to the Haunted House or throwing wet sponges at targets.  But once we got going, it took less than 90 minutes to give away all the Pops and prizes.  There were a handful of students who returned again and again.  One Fourth grader must have come back a dozen times!  I am not sure how much the tickets were but I suspect they were a buck each.  This translates into more than a hundred dollars each for Colynn and me to spend how we wish on our classrooms.

On my walk home, I saw that the parking lot was as close to being filled as I have ever seen it.  I suspect that 80% of the village came to the Carnival. It is a huge money maker for the school but also a chance for everyone to have a good time.  The annual Dividend checks (more on this phenomenon in another post but basically, if you can prove you lived in Alaska for a year, they pay you.) came out earlier in the month so everyone is flush with cash.  All the dudes at Open Gym are sporting new gym shoes, fewer hand-me-downs are worn to school and kids with fistfuls of tickets were commonplace at the Carnival.  All of the costumes were store bought and there was even a Waldo among all the Elsas.  Really, so many Elsas!

Colynn and I left as soon as our Tootsie Pops ran out and our game put away.  But, lame as it was, I am keeping the Spot the Pop board.  Maybe next year, we'll dress it up a little but why mess with success?