Never Go Behind a Tent with a Carnie

The Indiana Dribbler* is on his way into town as I write. Ivanovich went up to get him from the train station this evening. Indiana is one of Ivan’s closest and oldest friends, and he’s coming in to help move Ivan back to Michigan. This is the charming bumbler, the microbiologist-/geneticist-/physicist-in-training who stars in many of Ivan’s stories, the most recent being “Come On, Granola.” If you missed it:

Indiana was sitting at a coffee shop/café somewhere in the Ann Arbor/Ypsi area, using his laptop, drinking some coffee, eating some granola. However, he’s a little clumsy, and he kept having trouble with the granola dripping milk, falling off his spoon onto his laptop, etc. Finally, he said, “Come on, granola. Be a team player.” From behind him, a girl asked, “Do you always have conversations with your cereal?” Indy went to say something smooth, but somehow, in the course of standing and turning, he got his feet tangled in his chair and tripped spectacularly. He knocked over his chair, his table, her table, and falls. Staring up at the girl from where he was lying in a puddle of milk, coffee, and cereal, he asked, “Got dinner plans?”

SHE TURNED HIM DOWN! Can you believe it? I don’t know what’s wrong with women these days. But, ladies, he’s in town!

Other than that, it’s been a strange week. Ivanovich and I have started the processes of separating what is his from what is mine from what is ours and of deciding who gets to keep what, based on who bought it, who gave it as a gift, or who will miss it more (he gets the dog; I get the Eddie Izzard DVDs; he can have my nice mahogany bookcase; I keep the baker’s rack). Whether or not it will fit in his moving pod is also a factor. It’s sad to split up our lives like this after so many years of living together. We’ve done the books already, as well as the DVDs and videos, but we still have to tackle the CDs and the kitchen stuff. I find myself getting weepy over spice jars and wishing I had written something in the front cover of one of the books I gave him. We haven’t fought about anything yet, which is nice, but with Indiana’s arrival, I’m realizing how little time we have left, and I’m worried we will start arguing with the stress of these final days.

There are always bright spots, of course. Today, Atalanta, O.D., and I went to the CARNIVAL! in the parking lot of the crappy mall. It was terribly skeezy. There’s not even a fence around the whole thing – you can just wander in, sabotage rides, unplug the vendors’ carts, or hang around smoking. We went on three rides, and for all three, the operators weren’t even at their stations when we walked up – we had to kind of loiter at the entrance till a carnie walked up and said, “You waiting to ride this?” The rides were made all the more thrilling by the potential for immediate, agonizing death. We were the only people riding the first one, the Scrambler (which O.D. insisted on calling the “egg beater” and on which we crammed all three of us into one cart and during which O.D. screamed the ENTIRE time, barely stopping to breathe, which made me laugh for most of the ride, which was actually pretty scary, since halfway through, another carnie walked up, smoking a cigarette, talked to our carnie while the ride threw us toward the port-a-potties and then back towards other carts, and then switched places with our carnie, who disappeared [though he reappeared later to run another ride for us], leaving us with the new guy and an extra two or three minutes of shrieking).

The second ride was just for me and Atalanta, with O.D. wandering around with her purse. It was called the Spider, and it spun, twirled, and dropped us (I know! Three verbs for one machine! It was an incredibly complex ride, though I noticed it was held up mostly by two-foot sections of 2x4s). The third ride, though, was the most terrifying. Atalanta wouldn’t do this one, so it was just me and O.D., though two other girls rode this one with us (finally, we wouldn’t die alone! Well, if just our cart flew off, I guess we still would.). I forget the name – Hurricane? – but it basically spun us out with centripetal force (or maybe centrifugal – I get the two mixed up. Yeah, I think it’s centrifugal.) and then bounced us up and down. Didn’t sound too scary at first, but when we got on, I noticed that the fiberglass around a couple of the bolts was cracked. I asked O.D. if he wanted to switch to another cart, but he pooh-poohed me, citing that it was more fun if it was scarier. The weird carnie powered it up, and it was absolutely terrifying. I could feel the fiberglass giving out more each time the cart bounced. I held onto the metal bar so hard its imprint stayed on my palm for minutes afterward. Each time we passed the pneumatic thingy, we smelled gas (Atalanta later told us we were lucky it wasn’t the smoking carnie running the ride). Life-threatening! Terrifying! Fun! Who wants to go to Valley Fair this summer?

*The Indiana Dribbler got his name on his 21st birthday.** One of his friends bought him an Alabama Slammer; when he asked what to do with it, they explained that you slam it on the table. He was dubious, but they insisted. Finally, with sort of a “well, all right” attitude, he picked up the drink, flipped it upside down, and slammed the glass down on the table. None of it spilled – it was trapped in the glass. Indiana looked up at everyone, incredulously gawping at the glass, and asked, “Now what?”


** I think I stole this asterisk tactic from Atalanta. Thanks, A! It’s nifty.

PS - Indiana just told me that centripetal force isn't really a force at all - it's the sensation of force as a result of the body feeling centrifugal force holding things together. Cool!

Author's Note, 2008: I found out at Ivan's wedding that it wasn't Indiana after all, but Indiana's brother, who bumbled his way out of a date. I suppose it runs in the family. Still: stupid girl! The correct answer should have been, "Marry me!"