Free without Purchase

On Saturday we went to our neighbor's church's carnival. We'd seen the sign that said "Free food, games, music!" Of course, we didn't really believe it. Sure, maybe a free miniature Hershey bar and $5 for a hot dog. Guess what? Everything was free. We got to the main table and they handed us a food ticket with drawings of cotton candy, hot dogs, chips and soda, that each got punched when picked up the represented food, I guess so we wouldn't load up on 15 cones of cotton candy (blech). The lady suggested we enter the raffle, and G asked how much each ticket was, and she looked at him and repeated, "It's free." A scary clown gave A. a balloon. A. also earned tickets at the games (sort of - he tried to kill the rubber ducks in the duck pond and got several tickets for that and nearly took out a young boy with a golf club at the putting green) and we traded the tickets in for a plastic truck, a couple cheap necklaces that look smashing on him and a monkey coloring book. We played in the toddler's bounce house, ate hot dogs, chips and soda, tried our hand (or feet) at the free cake walk, and listened to the mediocre Christian pop the hip young Lutherans were singing. Everything really was free, and no pressure to join the church, either. It was remarkable.