Boy in Suit: Pride Saturday

As usual, I was running late when I dropped Titus off with Megan. Since her office is next to the library, she's letting us keep Titus there so we can check on him throughout the day. I think it's better than having someone watch him since I don't want to inconvenience anyone.

I quickly got Titus settled, then drove over to the Center where volunteers were going to meet me. I almost got into an accident on the way there and thankful missed the car by a couple of inches. It would have really ruined my weekend.

When I arrived at 9am, there was only one volunteer there. I instantly panicked, thinking that no one was going to show up even though I scheduled lots of Saturday volunteers.

only 1 volunteer, feared that no one would show up even though Sat has lots of volunteers. At around 9:30am, most of the volunteers showed up and I let out a sigh of relief. We drove over to the storage unit, put everything in the truck, and drove to the Pride site.

Brian gave me nine Nextel phones to hand out to Megan and my volunteer assistants. They worked great today! They were great because of the little beep they make to notify you that someone is calling. A regular walkie-talkie does not do that.

There were lots of little things that we had to do which I won't write about here because they are boring (unless moving garbage cans, putting up signs, and constructing a fence are interesting to you). We actually finished everything at 3pm, about three hours ahead of last year, so I had to send some volunteers home early. The next time I needed volunteers was 6pm.

One volunteer came by at 1pm and said she was ready to volunteer in the store. When I told her that Pride was on Sunday, she said that the email she received said Saturday. I told her that I wouldn't have done that. I tried looking it up on Megan's computer, but there was no internet access. The volunteer didn't want to wait around, so she walked away angry. I later checked the exact email and I had, in fact, told her Saturday. I felt like an idiot and bad for the girl who I didn't believe but was right.

I made this audio post in the middle of the day:

The dance tonight was crazy busy! There were so many more people there than last year due to the wonderful weather. Everything went pretty well and I had a chance to not be "crazy" busy.

When 10pm arrived, I had my volunteers start moving the crowd out of the park. Security also helped us and every patron had left by 10:10pm. When I told Jere at 9:45pm that I wanted everyone out by 10:10pm, he said that it wasn't a realistic expectation. I was glad when it actually happened.

As we were telling people to leave, one lady named Dominique (who I've interacted with before) started yelling at one of my volunteers. I walked over to her and said, "It's time to go. Thank you for coming." Seconds later, Dominique was asking a security guard, "What other festival kicks people out of the park like we're criminals?"

I told Dominique that the dance ended at 10pm and it was time to go. I also said that I was responsible for getting people out quickly because many volunteers needed to be here at 6am the next day. Her reply? "Ever since you've become involved, you've been on one big power trip." Yes, I volunteer for Pride just to feel powerful.