Getting the Exhibit Hall Ready for the Giant Pumpkin Contest

I got the call from the fair staff that our exhibit hall was ready. We had exactly one week to get it ready before the fair opened. I took off immediately and arrived an hour later at the fairgrounds. I got directions to our hall.

It looked very impressive from the outside. It was constructed in a “Woodpile” themed architecture. The entrance was big enough to admit chipmunks, squirrels, mice, birds and even bunny rabbits! The interior had a ton of space. The lumberjacks who built it weren’t the most tidy folks. There must have been  an inch or more of dirt on the floor.

I complained about it to management and they just smiled and handed me a broom. I protested and demanded a reduction in our exhibit fee. I was surprised when they agreed and said they would give us a complete refund and hire someone to sweep it out. Wow, I am better at this negotiation business than I thought. The next thing I noticed they were handing me the bill for the cost of building the exhibit hall, and it was three times the amount of the hall rental fee! I very humbly asked if we could go back to the original deal. They said “no problem” and handed the broom back to me.

Any idea how a broom works? Is it like a leaf blower? Where is the “on” switch?

I had to call an “expert” on these things, my wife. She sent me a fifteen minute instructional video on high efficiency sweep techniques.

After two hours of sweeping I had a huge dirt pile. Excellent I can check this off my “to-do” list. I do apologize to my fans, sweeping dirt hardly qualifies as an exciting adventure. I can just see the social media posts, "Chippy's 250th blog post is voted the world's most boring episode of 2021."

Like many business, I am having trouble hiring staff for the blog writing department. In fact, I was so desperate I hired a human writer. I am sorry to say this human has never been on an adventure, has no sense of humor nor any imagination whatsoever.

 My friend, Bushy the squirrel dropped by. I was hoping he would cheer me up. He rather innocently asked,  “how do you expect critters to get inside with a huge dirt pile in the entrance?” (I must admit, I hadn’t thought about that.) This is the reason that manual labor projects like this should be left to professionals and I said as much to Bushy.

 

Bushy couldn’t contain himself and started to giggle uncontrollably. To make matters worse, management stopped by to see how things were progressing.

They took a long look around and finally said in a very serious tone, “Chippy, smile your on Candid Critter!” ... I was left speechless ...

After I recovered,  I congratulated Bushy on a very clever gag and becoming the new host of Candid Critter. In the mists of occasional spontaneous outbursts of laughter, everyone pitched in to disperse the dirt and get things ready in record time.

 Thankfully, we had the resources of the TV show’s set decorating team.

 

 

The head decorator spend twenty minutes contemplating what was the best side of the pumpkin to show. Everything looked fantastic when it was done.

 

On the opening day of the Topsfield Fair I had the distinct honor of declaring the new exhibit open for visitation. We had a crowd of over a thousand critters waiting to get in. You would think visitors would first want see our fine selection of giant pumpkins and squash. Nope, visitors flocked to see me making a fool of myself on a special showing of "Candid Critter".