Uh Oh ... BINGO BOSS

 It's a GREAT morning in Central California, though I could have used a few more hours of sleep.  Mornings are in the low 60's, which means Cooper gets to go for walks.  It won't be that way for long because the next seven days are scooting up to over 100 degrees.  OUCH!

It's also BINGO TUESDAY ... but let's get garden business taken care of first.

Sunflowers have sprung up all over the neighborhood, watered only by ... well I'm sure you can guess.  Once Cooper did his part to make the neighborhood beautiful, we headed for the back yard garden.

I had so many cherry tomatoes that I donated a HUGE Zip-lok bag to the neighbor and STILL had a bowl full to eat.  I think we are on the downhill slide since there are not a lot of new flowers.

I even grabbed a couple of squash, which also got donated.  I'm now wondering what they put on the veggies to keep them from going bad.  If not eaten in two days, these home grown ones go to pot.  The store bought ones can stay in the fridge for a week!!

Too much hand washing after the garden harvest meant my bandage came off.  Yup ... I ripped it pretty good.  I noticed last night that the tip of my finger is numb.  At least if I do this dumb stunt again, I won't feel it as much!

With all that stuff out of the way, I headed off to the Lodge.  We still don't have any air conditioning in the office and our poor bookkeeper was stuck trying to get the reports out for the Thursday Trustee meeting, not to mention payroll and all the bother of our new Fireworks Chairman asking a million questions about the accounting for the booth.  We didn't make a bundle, but hopefully enough to cover our next big problem that raised its ugly head last night.  

I landed upstairs just in time for the King to arrive at the Magic Castle.  Somehow I magically got talked into playing BINGO BOSS for the night.  King of the Castle ... or rather Queen of the Castle!!  Oh joy ... this should be FUN!!  Especially since I ran off and left my phone at home ... so no pictures, just lots of bingo cards with notes I hand wrote on the back.

It's all about the pull tabs and the cards sold on the floor, that make us all the money.  I never wanted to learn that part of the gig ... but here I am.  Knowing how many boxes of which game to bring out is an art ... and I'm not very artsy.  It's also hard to learn so much when people are constantly asking you questions.

The King drug me around for over an hour before it was time to call the Pull Tab games.  This is a little cousin of the machine we have.  We have boards that range from giant TV screens to 4'x10' massive electronic boards so everyone can see the numbers called.

Let's just add to the craziness by having Newby Nancy train a completely unexperienced new guy how to call the first four games.  Surprisingly, it didn't go GREAT, but was OKAY.  

In between games, I ran out more pull tab games to sell on the floor, for a total of NINE in all.  I think there are 500 cards per box, all sold to only 112 people on this night.  Then it was time for the Newby King Boss to call the early bird games.  

I was just humming right along when I heard the disaster in the making.  DRIP DRIP DRIP.  Are you kidding me?  Water is leaking from the ceiling in front of me.  I yelled LOUDLY for the REAL King.  He looked up and said ... YUP ... that's water coming from the light fixture, and got a bucket to set underneath.  We don't know if it's a bad air conditioner or a sweet little mouse that has chewed through the drain hose looking for water right at the AC unit.  Apparently that has happened before.  I tucked that little nugget of info into my brain.

I instantly resigned my Boss position and deferred to the King.  Keep calling he said ... nothing keeps Bingo from its appointed task.  We'll look at it tomorrow.  

Okay then ... and we finished off the night while I helped our new Cashier balance to the penny.  That means she'll be back next week!!

I spent the rest of the night hanging out with our crew until the last number was called.  10:00 to be exact.  With my eyes barely open, I checked all the doors, locked the safe and asked the tall guy to turn the lights off because in less than five minutes, the place was completely empty of players.  

On the way out, I set the alarm without setting it OFF, and locked the door.  It was the easiest part of the entire night.  I now have three more weeks to practice before all the Kings and Knights leave for the month of August.  It's just going to be me and the crew.  Won't THAT be fun!!!  

The good news ... there was not one single complaint all night long. Thank you Bingo players for small favors!!!

My guess is I'll be on the couch snoozing in less than an hour!!