So, this is a post I started a month ago or so and forgot about finishing it. The story is worth telling though.
If anyone ever walks up to you and says: "Hey there, I will give you $100 if you will play cowboy pinball with me", just walk away...or maybe run.
Bull riding came to Greenwood the week before Thanksgiving. It was totally worth the $10 price of admission. We went with a bunch of friends that knew little to nothing about rodeo. That was fun for sure. They are all from New England and really were freaked out by the whole thing. The most bizarre things happened between the go-rounds when there were "halftime activities". Different than the half-court shot, but basically the same ideas:
1. "Fill up your pants with change" game- I don't know what the actual name is, but the idea is that the clowns have a giant wheelbarrow filled with $1,000 in change and the contestant gets to keep all of the change that can fit in their pants. So ends up that the lady that got picked is very attractive with quite snugly fitting pants...clowns came out of the woodwork to help load up her jeans. She allegedly had ONE minute, but they let it go on pretty long because she was jumping up and down excessively and what bunch of rodeo clowns don't want to watch a hot chick jump up and down?
2. "Cowboy Pinball"- This one is a dozy. Jake and I had never actually seen it, but had heard about it from last year's rodeo. The clowns drew 30 circles made of flour in the arena, took 30 of the craziest people you have ever met, and let them stand in the circles while they released a bull into the arena. The bull then runs around the arena scaring/pushing/ snotting on people pushing them out of their circles. The idea is whoever is the last person still in their circle wins.
This is all made more interesting by the fact that one of the traveling therapists decided to take part. Dave. Dave is awesome. He is a big dude from New York with a backwards Notre Dame hat and a totally great attitude about life. He will also do ANYTHING for money. And $100 was enough to get him to sign himself up for Cowboy Pinball much to the chagrin of his girlfriend (another traveling therapist). She had a friend who became a quadriplegic after he went running with the bulls in Spain...we didn't really know that when we were egging Dave on to go jump in the ring. Whoops.
Anyway, so big tough Dave is standing cool as a cucumber in the ring when the bull starts running through the group. Dave got pushed out of the ring early, but it was the clowns fault and we all went nuts so they put him back in. He made is down the the last 4 and then the bull ran right at him. So Dave tried to forearm shiver the bull and set his feet in the ground...but the bull kept pushing and shoved him out of his circle. Sadness. But then they regrouped and let really mean bulls with big horns out on the remaining 3 idiots so Dave was fine he got out when he did.
We were all "horse" from yelling and Dave was covered in bull snot on one arm, but now has a really great story for the folks back home!
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