And I don’t mean with a hammer. When I was a kid, we went to a cheesey street carnival where
I was completely, obsessively enchanted with these dolls that were probably
made out of cat hair and someone’s old pantyhose. But it didn’t matter, of
course, because I was four and the dolls had on ruffly Flamenco dresses. I begged my mom
to please please please win me a doll. That led to a long old serious
conversation where my mom explained probability and how carnival games are
rigged to take your hard-earned teacher’s salary cash and how she would buy
three balls to throw at the board and three balls only and how I absolutely
could not cry when (and not if) she did not win me a doll.
And then, because life does occasionally tilt in the favor
of small children with big dress dreams, she walked up to the booth, bought
three chances, threw the first ball…and won.
Of course, this only led me to have a life-long belief that
you really can win giant stuffed lions and bowls of goldfish that die four hours
later in only a few tries. And really, you can. Dumb Little Man has some great tips on how to give
those blasted carnies a run for their $4 a pop games, all in the name of
proving yourself and the laws of crappy prize probability wrong.
