A few months ago my work had an employee appreciation carnival complete with games, food, and music. I’ve always loved carnival games and still do. There were familiar games like picking a rubber ducky with a hidden symbol marked on the bottom of it and the cup toss where I throw a ball and it needs to land on a certain color cup. I did pretty well at them having won some small practical prizes like a power bank and hand sanitizer this year.
Then I saw the giant stuffed giraffe. The giraffe was the prize for the football throwing game. You get three footballs and have to throw them into holes worth a different number of points, but needing to add up to 60 points (basically you have to be 3 out of 3 on your throws) in order to win the stuffed animal. This game was NOT for me. I’m not particularly good at throwing balls. Maybe I would be better if I practiced, but I never do.
Thankfully I spotted my coworker in line to play. I ran over and asked him to please win me the giraffe pointing to the stuffed animal on display. To my surprise, he won! He actually took 4 throws to get to 60 points, but he made the first 2 throws and missed the third one so the vendor gave him an extra throw. He got the giraffe and gave it to me.
I was flying high the rest of the day. I couldn’t believe that he won it and that I got my giraffe! I wasn’t expecting a carnival prize to affect me that much. I was actually surprised how excited I was about it because I’m not a stuffed animal person at all. But the moment I got it, I was so ridiculously happy.
The truth is that the giraffe was my favorite animal growing up. Giraffes came up every time I went to the zoo or did something animal related.
I’ve gone much of my adult life without thinking much about giraffes. I wouldn’t say I have much attachment to them now. They were a favorite a very long time ago, and now it’s one of many animals. I would even say my favorite animals are dogs and cats now since I’ve had pets that I’ve loved very much.
But apparently seeing that giraffe sparked something inside me. My inner child woke up and told me how much I still love giraffes.
And as much as I love carnivals and carnival games, I didn’t attend many of them growing up and played even fewer of their games. I was always hopeful that I would get to play and win something, but it never happened. The fact that my coworker won the giraffe for me made the whole experience even sweeter because it was like someone won it for me as a child since I couldn’t win one myself.
I know the giraffe is just a toy. I don’t need these toys. There was a panda stuffed animal available as a prize that day too, and I had no interest in it. But the giraffe returned me to my childhood and for that afternoon, I felt like a kid again, one who had won the best prize at the carnival.