DUCK GRAB

Welcome to DUCK GRAB. Your shift starts fifteen minutes before the park opens. Don't be late again. I’ll go through set-up tomorrow, so, again, I repeat: Don't be late. Your shift ends after the park closes and we drain the trough and get everything put away for the night – around 11:00, usually. You get a bathroom break at noon. Porta potties are over there. You can eat lunch whenever you want, but you have to eat it while you work. I recommend you avoid eating the food here. Did you bring a sandwich or anything? Yeah? Good. Okay, here’s how it works. The "customer" – usually a little kid and an accompanying adult - walks up and asks how much (It says it on the sign, but they don’t ever read the sign). You tell ‘em $2 gets ‘em a duck. $5 gets ‘em three. After they’ve paid, you let ‘em reach in and grab a duck. Each duck has a letter – A, B, or C - inked on its underside. See? Next, depending on what letter they’ve drawn, you select the corresponding prize from the prize bin. (The prize bins are located right behind you. Now, out of fifty ducks, there’s forty C’s, 7 B’s, and 3 A’s. So mostly you’ll be dealing with the C-bin, which are these whimsically-shaped gum erasers. With somewhat less frequency, you’ll be handing out the coveted glow sticks from bin number B. And from to time the lucky winner will get the Holy Grail - a stuffed yellow duck from bin number A.) You give them the prize. Then you put the duck back in the trough. And that's that. Most of the time it’s moms and dads with their little kids and, you know, it's like Isn’t it sooo sweet that junior can reach in and grab his very own rubber duck? and Look ! Now he’s getting a reward for his efforts – an eraser shaped liked Odie! “But daddy I wanted a glow stick!” so they have another try or so and basically keep trying until they get the damned glow stick. But then it's "Daddy! Now I want a stuffed duckie!” And that's the game. The secret of how I have made a small fortune is this: There’s no way to lose at DUCK GRAB. Everybody wins. Always. But you know what? Always winning's not enough. People see these little bobbing ducks and they want to fucking master them already.