Union Picnic

My union has joined a much larger, more powerful union, who kindly invited us to join in their annual "family picnic".  I used to go to union picnics as a kid with my dad and remember they were a lot of fun.  This one boasted a classic car show and food and games, so I thought "why not?"  I invited some friend who are classic car enthusiasts to join us.

It started out well, it really did.  We got some freebies from vendors ( a nice "grocery type bag" and some other medical related stuff.  I saw our ED who had a t-shirt big enough to fit Chris and that was nice.  THEN we went into the venue....

The signboard said "Midget bullriding"  I don't know WHY I thought it was Midget BULLS. Nope.  Not even close.  It was Midget rodeo.  The guy doing the bullfighting was doing a fairly decent job of it, even the bull seemed to know what his "part" was. It was amusing , if gentle bullfighting.  I usually root for the bull anyway.  At this point, I guess I didn't realize that they were all midgets.  THEN they introduced the "Sexy siren"  a woman came out dressed in a g-string with a lot of fringe and a bikini top.  She looked like Honey  Boo-Boo.  She proceeded to badly lip sync to what I can only assume is a famous Mexican recording artist.  The MC extolled the crowd to cattle call here by saying "isn't she sexy?'  It was degrading.  The next few "acts" also badly dressed performers lip syncing away, was painful to watch.  The bull fighter came out and "rode" the bull- he actually took a stage fall as the bull left the gate.  Same thing when he tried to ride a pony.  Now here is the part that pissed me OFF.  This is,remember a UNION PICNIC.  The Master of Ceremonies, a brother member of the Affiliate, took an American flag out of his pocket and spread it out .  "who here is proud to be an American? " he asked.  Cheers from the crowd.  He then proceeded to say that that the flag he had was made in China and then he WIPED HIS SWEATY FACE ON IT.   DUDE  that is NOT a rag, it's a FLAG.  Insulted?  YES. Mortified that someone connected to a union would do such a disrespectful thing.

The food was free, but we didn't get any.  They had ONE booth open and the crowd was so big that it would have taken 1/2 hour to get anything.  I was not standing in line that long for what looked like three street tacos.  It was hot and I had a lot of work ahead of me.

The "Classic car show" wasn't all that much to look at.  I have seen more classic cars in the local Von's parking lot, they had maybe 8 cars, some of which were cars I had driven "back in the day ( I am classic aged I guess)  Nice but not worth the drive.

As we were leaving, I stopped by the Kaiser table to see what they had to offer. NONE of the employees even broke away from their conversations to greet us.  Typical Kaiser employees. I had a question or two, but couldn't get the attention of the people at the Vision Essentials station at all ( how ironic is it that they wouldn't make eye contact?)  I took a squeezy apple and departed, making a loud reference to the fact that they were JUST as helpful as everyone else at Kaiser ( which isn't really fair, as some people have been VERY helpful, it's just ADMIN people who suck- for the most part)