OK, I’ll admit it, I nearly “dropped the ball” on Saturday and ruined Christmas for the entire crew here at The Evening Sun. How did I manage to put myself in such a predicament, you ask? I didn’t actually, but that’s what my trusted co-workers and esteemed editor would have you believe. In actuality, I saved our company float (kind of), primarily due to my inherent tendency to always have a back-up plan (well, almost always).
This isn’t to say I didn’t come awfully close to complete and utter damnation in the eyes of my fellow float-builders, however, because I did.
When plans for our (almost) annual Parade of Lights float first began to take shape, I’ll admit I was excited. I don’t think I’ve been a part of any parade, whatsoever, in at least 15 to 20 years, not since my marching band days. So when the question was tossed about as to who would provide a gas-powered generator for said float, I jumped on it. I mean really, I must know dozens of people who have one kicking around in their garage, right? As it turns out, that wasn’t the case – not at all.
However, after numerous phone calls to friends, relatives, friends of relatives and relatives of friends (not to mention complete strangers), I’d tracked down a small, supposedly efficient and relatively new generator. The problem? No one had bothered to find out if the thing even worked in years.
Because of this, I decided (wisely it turns out) to secure a back-up, just to be on the safe side. Now that the parade has come and gone, I’ll be the first to admit I’m thankful I did so.
I arrived at my friend’s house at approximately 9 a.m. Saturday morning, only to find he’d neglected to try and start this particular electricity-producing, gas-powered piece of junk. Numerous attempts to fire the blasted thing up produced mixed results, to put it mildly. It would start one minute only to sputter out two minutes later. Further attempts to bring it to life produced results which, in the end, confirmed my worst fears.
Less than two hours later, my search for a generator – an absolutely essential part of any successful holiday float – found me frantically attempting to locate anything other than my back-up, primarily due to the fact that it was, shall we say, a bit larger than I’d originally expected. To put it simply, our Delivering Christmas float really didn’t require a 6,000 watt generator (enough to power a small foreign nation, I was assured). Regardless, things turned out just fine in the long run and, with a little help from some friends, this behemoth of a dynamo made its way to our offices here at The Evening Sun.
