Street performer!

I worked until ten pm on the third and fourth of July. I was feeling pretty dead tired when I got off work on the third, and had plans to go to the woodyard and bundle firewood starting at 7:30 in the morning, so I had wonderful plans of going right to sleep after getting off work. But about ten minutes before I got off, my friend Tyler, who works at the front desk, suggested I go downtown, stand on a street corner, and juggle and eat fire before and after the fireworks to see if people would put money in my hat. I'm not going to lie, I was tempted to say no because I was tired, but then I thought, "Seriously, Lint Monkey, what better opportunity? And what is there to lose? A few hours of sleep and a little bit of pride, tops."

Oh, yeah, and the risk of getting arrested. Rye and Chris both said the city would come and make me stop because they would require me to get a license. Terrace said I would get arrested for playing with fire. Someone else (I don't remember who) said I would get arrested just because cops are jerks. Tyler, who drove everyone downtown and stayed with me rather than go bar-hopping with the other young adults from the resort, also was nervous about getting arrested. But I decided to do it anyway, because I seriously couldn't imagine getting anything worse than a warning and a request to stop.

So I found a nice alcove in front of a closed restaurant halfway between two bars and began playing around. A lot of people stopped to watch, many asked if they could play too. Several asked if they could have their pictures taken with me. One particularly drunk girl grabbed a torch and said, "Watch! I can do it too!" Blew out the fire and then stuck the torch in her mouth. "See??? I'm SO cool!"

I didn't have any set routine or music or patter or anything, but most of the passersby were too drunk to really care, and I was having fun. After about half an hour, I heard someone say, "Hey, is that allowed?" I looked up, and there were two policemen standing there watching. I wasn't too worried, though, because they were watching in interest, not irritation. Their response was, "Heh. Cool."

I threw my arms up and cheered. "You mean I'm not in trouble?"

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Don't set any buildings on fire, kay?" and they walked off.

The passersby loved me. "Mommy, Mommy, look at the man eating fire!" "Hey, that guy's eating fire!" "Wow, he's cool! Hey, let's go watch that dude over there! I think he's going to swallow that fire!" (Okay, I did more fire-eating than juggling. It was too dark to see the balls well after the fireworks show at midnight.)

I spent about an hour and a half goofing off and having fun, and made almost forty dollars in tips. It was pretty much the coolest thing ever!

So now I'm officially a professional street performer, yeah? :D