The IP happy ending

(part 2 of yesterday's review)

It’s Sunday, 11:13am. I’m standing online outside of the stadium, there are 16 people all lined up in front of me; four in back. Various displays of sleepy people still wearing yesterday’s sexy. Must have come straight from Insomnia like me. I figure that those 16 people should be taken care of fast enough, and buying an unsold costume from IP will definitely not be an all day thing. I should have enough time to buy some stuff to fix up costume, make my adjustments AND get some rest before jouvert. My hopes were laid to rest soon after, sharing the same burial plot as my patience and enthusiasm.

The line began to curve alongside the Stadium as people stood near the building to avoid the noonday sun. It would have been nice to have some complementary water for the people patiently waiting. Hell, I would have gladly paid for it. 1:30pm the gate was still not opened for anyone other than those who needed to use the bathroom. At 2:14pm they began letting customers people pick up their missing headpieces and make size swaps. “where de big titty gyal dem?” was the catcall of a ‘helpful’ husband who was assisting his female companion with finding someone who wanted to exchange a small bra for the large one that she ordered. Island Peoples personnel walked up to gate and looked upon the mayhem and did absolutely nothing.

A security guard walked up to the gate and asked, in a voice so low only the people being crushed against the gate could hear- ‘allyuh make two lines’. People passed along the message to the back but no one moved. A short while later they allowed six people in, at this point everyone began to crush towards the front. One of the security guards managed to find his way outside and made small talk with us. He told us that the reason for the delay was because when they closed up the night before, no one stayed late to organize anything. Inside all of the boxes were mixed sizes and even parts from other costumes, not to mention pieces of costumes missing in its entirety. Long story short, ‘it’s just a mess in der’ is what he told us. He then went on to say that he gets an ‘employee discount’ and could buy our costumes for us for ‘a little sumting, nah’. Ok, that seemed like great idea.

No waiting on line, a discount on the costumes and we get to find out whats available and make our decision before we get inside. We gave him our sizes and the sections we wanted to play in (Carnival frontline, Touch, and anything white) He came back and said they were all available. We were unable to cut in the front of the line to get in so he sent us to an alternative entrance where trucks were coming in transporting backpacks for frontline costumes and a few headpieces. After seeing the colorful valances on carnival we decided that it’s ether touch or the white costume with the wings.

“NO WINGS” my cousin muttered. Damn it, so much for our ‘sea salt boots’ matching our costumes this year. Touch it is. (And thank god we listened to her) :
www.slide.com/r/zQIYZo2f7D8JfHxzwlys0twbdYyn3yAD

We told him the section we wanted and he returned to us an hour later saying that the Carnival frontline is 4900tt and the touch costume is 3800tt. We told him fine, and to please hurry up so that we can get out of there. Two hours later we saw the people we were standing in front of online earlier that morning, leave with their costumes. WTF??? We found the guy and asked him what was taking so long, let us give you the money and give us the costumes so we can go. He said we had a bit long erto wait. Frustrated, my cousin decides we should just go to the cashier and pay because we are obviously not getting out any faster. She went to the register and met with a woman who had a price list in her hands. She ran back to me with it and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Touch was only 3095tt?????????????? That guy was trying to make money off of us?!!?!? Wtf happened to the ‘employee discount’.

We tracked him down and asked him the price again. He repeated the 3800 and we showed him the price list. All of the sudden he is telling us to pay the cashier and wait on this ridiculously slow line. Anyway, at the register the cashier says that boy shorts are 75 dollars. I told her I’ll just take the panty option. Our ‘friend’ the security guard went to get us our costumes. Despite the issues, we had to admit, the costumes were beyond gorgeous. We told him that we should be given boyshorts for compensation of all this madness. He went and got them for us. As we were getting ready to leave he told us we couldn’t have the boyshorts for free and that we had to pay for them. I asked him for the price, (already knowing the answer) He looked me in my eyes with all the innocence in the world and said……150tt. I told him I only had 40tt and handed it to him as I walked out of the door. I watched him put the money in his pocket. The time was then 6:10pm.

His name was GAVIN

Despite the bad costume pickup experience I went on to have a wonderful carnival Monday and Tuesday with IP. I Think I broke almost every rule in Mimi’s boots rulebook blog


No, the food wasn’t gourmet. No, we didn’t have foot rubs, or makeup refreshing. We wasn’t misted with neutrogena spf 70 sun block spray, we weren’t fed grapes and there wasn’t any piggy back rides for the tired masqueraders who could not hang. But then again, that’s not what I played mas to experience. I wanted the drinks to flow (and it did), I wanted to dance and hang with some of the most wassy, beautiful, jammish, friendly and fun-loving masqueraders on the planet while wearing a gorgeous, sexy and creative costume. From morning ‘til night. And That’s exactly what I got. The lack of sleep, the constant rain and even the ‘wild antz’ song on repeat did not interfere with my sexy or good cheer. I’d definitely play with them again. I won’t ever buy another costume on carnival Sunday, but i’d play with them again.

Btw: The Security in the surrounding sections was good:


People? Awesome
www.flickr.com/photos

We didn’t have many people in our section, but the camaraderie was there in abundance.