The Show Must Go On

Today started off a little crazy. We had 3 shows as usual on a Saturday- 11:30, 3:30 and 7:30. We also had out normal bus schedule of 6, 8, 9 and 10am. Preshow starts at 10:30. Because our management team is so great at planning ahead (insert high levels of sarcasm here), they didn't take into account that today in washington, DC was the annual cherry blossom festival where they block off half of downtown DC. So.... let the chaos begin. I was on the 8 bus. What should have taken 15 minutes to get to work took over an hour. So by the time the 8 bus returned to pick up the people waiting for the 9 bus, it was already 9:40 so you had the 9 and 10 bus people trying to get on. Long story short- maybe 3 performers showed up for preshow. Because animal crew is always there early we had to improvise preshow. I got to bring out my pony, Prince and let all the kids touch him. Some of them were getting so excited they were completely falling into him. Good thing he is such a good boy. The show was held 15 minutes to allow everyone to get there. It was a crazy morning so I took a break after the first show and went to Caribou Coffee to wind down a bit. Tomorrow is going to be hell. We have a 3 show load out. Since the next town is Fairfax and only 25 miles away we are also loading IN tomorrow night. My day will start at 7am and I predict we will be done sometime around 7-8 am the next day. Imagine- 24 hours of straight work- in a normal work environment, i would only have 16 hours left of work for the week. YA RIGHT! THANK GOD I GO TO SAINT LOUIS MONDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!