Pull Tabs and $$$

 Wait .... give me a second to wake up.  Maybe an hour would be better.  I'm yawning like crazy this morning.  You guessed it ..... it was a rousing night of Bingo where my brain had to work overtime.

But first ... some puppy love from my little kid who will be 17 years old in three short months.  The Vet and I are both amazed he has lived this long and is still in good shape.  His twin brother passed away at 12.  It's a miracle he's still so active!!

Every morning he accompanies me outside for the tomato run.  Yup ... another red breakfast, accompanied by sliced mini cucumbers with a little zucchini thrown in for good luck.  I admit, I'm getting a little tired of eating this for breakfast.  I long for a big fat English muffin.

SOOOO .... I baked this.  Another cowboy quiche.  It's not too bad for you, let's me use up the last of that block of cheese, the remaining 1/2 cup of cream that I usually end up throwing out and some milk just before it spoiled.  Add in all the squash I had collected along with the last of the bacon .... it's a Fridge Cleanout Quiche that tastes like Heaven.

I definitely needed the quick start on this day because I received a text message at 1:00 that the back room Pull Tab boss would not be arriving until after the "I turn into a pumpkin" hour.  Okay ... I'm new to the back room, but I'll do my best.  The alternatives are sketchy.

The good news is my Fairy Godmother knows everything pull tabs because she's a BIG player!!  This gal does so much for Bingo she should get a medal.  First she sets up all the equipment and turns on all five televisions, making sure everything is working.

Then she sets up my bingo card selling station before pulling the boxes of games for the back room.  They look like this and come in boxes of 500 to 1,000.  These are pull tabs ... aptly named because you tear off the tab to find a small instant win like $1 all the way up to $10.  If you find 3 NUMBERS instead of little pictures, you get to play those like a bingo card.  If you win THAT game, you win $500 up to $1199.  Now you know why these little cards are the bees knees.

We pulled the boxes, put tags on each one with the games name and number before taking them one at a time out to the floor for sale.  They go like hotcakes for $1.00 each.  Don't take too many boxes out at a time, because we have to sell every card before calling that game.  Timing is everything.  Who knew there was so much to this?

After we have sold 3 or 4 boxes, I go up onstage and call those games, making some folks VERY happy.  Then we go back to selling one box at a time until all eight are sold.  Those games will be called much later in the night.  

A short 30 minutes later, I'm once again sitting on the stage getting ready to call our Early Bird games.  Only five games, which are regular one line Bingo.  Amazingly, there were no slings and arrows this time because I called it perfectly.  Woohoo!!!  It might have been better if I could have remembered the spiel you are supposed to give before and after each game, but they didn't care.  

With that done, I'm back to the game selling table to make sure our new Infernal Machine Operator did okay.  She did not.  It seems she remembered how to do everything except wake up the monster and how to void incorrect sales.  If you don't open its eyes first, it turns $150.00 into $15.00.  Even worse, it will show you refunded money when you did not.  ALL of which happened.

In the end, we were $53.00 short ... but I imagine that had something to do with the refund and I wasn't in the mood to spend another hour correcting it.  Luckily the King agrees ... it is what it is.  

Oh wait ... one more thing ... I spent 30 minutes practicing how to get the ancient walk-in safe open where all the game boxes live.  Good grief ... it doesn't like me much better than the infernal machine does.  I thought we were locked out for the night.  Luckily the King came to my rescue and we put everything away.  Another day ... another dollar for the kids through Elks Lodge donations.