Fitness, Fellowship, Faith
Fitness, Fellowship, Faith
Having some talks with the Village of Marvin in recent months put F3 on their personal invite list as a vendor for their Trick or Treat event. Maybe that could get some more FNGs in?
Vendor fairs have always been a feel-good Sisyphean task to me. Talk to A LOT of men (& a few of their wives) for several hours, feel like a real connection is made, & never see or hear from them again. I’ve gotten a false sense of hope when the first one I did solo brought out Black Hat. Changed some tactics/techniques with each one, treating this like a lab.
This time, we went with a theme of a circus side show called Feats of Strength. Two inflatable 1,000 pound dumbbells & 100 pound floating Styrofoam dumbbells. Strawberry donned a strong man costume & struggled to pick them up, while the kids lifted them with ease, to everyone’s astonishment. I wanted to try to get the whole family in on a viral photo, but there was too much disorder to get all of that setup. Huge shoutout to Mr. Berry who played this part perfectly for every bit of 3 hours!
Das Boot was the hit of the event in his Inflati-Cow costume! From being a bovine air bag to toddlers, to confusing kids by never mooing (but having every other animal sound emanate from him), even to random Cow Tag chases, he was giving us the second looks we needed.
Chaos was technically not the #firstfollower, but he absolutely kept me from sabotaging this thing by constantly asking questions & being the 1st to purchase giveaways for this gig. Seriously, this would have gone so badly (if we had done it at all), without Chaos. His & Strawberry’s early purchases forced me to stop focusing on the negative & start making some positive actions. They’re the real MVPs.
The accolades don’t stop, though. The Co-Qs of Avis, Middleman, & fugitive showed up ready for anything. They were handed a bag of parts for a brand new pipe & drape system, & got it assembled as if they had been working backstage on Broadway for years. These guys, along with Chaos, were the champions of engaging with every child. They were the handlers for those who couldn’t handle Strawberry’s muscle or Das’ udders. It was awesome seeing their humanity & playfulness outside the gloom.
The last minute hero of this event goes to Mad Dog. At first, only tasked with bringing the Waxhaw flag to my house, I threw a hail mary to him for more candy. Not only does he rally the troops by shaking down Pax for their lunch money, he buys the candy & brings everything to the park in plenty of time for us to set up with the confidence that we’re not gonna run out. We did have leftovers & they are already with Strawberry for Church on the Street.
Finally, Tanyatine. Had a ton of stuff going on, but found a way to be a helping hand in ALL of the above mentioned! Cool as a surfer dude riding all of this craziness. And presence of mind to capture some great pics along the way.
Everyone gets a 10×10 space. Typical vendors use tables to separate themselves from the crowd. We used Strawberry’s tables to mark the sides instead. This drew the kids into our space to interact with Strawberry’s shenanigans. The highly engaged dads would meet up with Tanyatine & his biz cards. Game knows game, so I went further out to engage with the disengaged dads. Several times, after I got some half-hearted interest in a guy, Middleman or Das would come up & close the deal cause they actually knew him.
Best exchange of the night: I’m talking with a man & his wife. About halfway through my pitch, the woman steps back in a horrible realization, “Are you the guys who were pullin’ that big truck at Christmas?!?” With a quick “Yep”, she backhands her husband across his chest, gestures to our group, then points right at him, “These are your kind of idiots!”
Even if we don’t get an FNG out of this, everyone listed here reinvigorated me. Thank you, men.
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