June 2007: Cotton Candy Making

Recently I was looking at my very neglected Myspace account and found some buried treasure!

Like much of my age group I haven't really looked at my page much in months. (Let's face it here. Myspace's days of being the top social website are over.) So I started going through those albums that used to be so important to me and found some pictures that I hadn't thought about since I posted them years ago.

What an awesome find!

So I wanted to share these little gems with you in a few posts. Because they made me smile and I hope that they do the same for you. :)

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June 2007

Here I am performing one of my many skills: cotton candy making.

Hook me up with a cotton candy machine (and supplies) and I will hook you up with some sugary goodness.

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For a job that I did a few years ago at the University, I made cotton candy for 8 hours straight. We gave it away for free for a sales event, so the table was super busy all day. We made hundreds of bags of cotton candy and now because of that day in early June of 2007, I feel qualified to say that I am a master at cotton candy making.

So here are a couple of tips that I learned firsthand:

1. Dress to get messy. You will be covered in sugar...especially if you are missing the cover of the cotton candy machine like we were. If you have long hair do yourself a favor and pull it up in some fashion. Minimize the sugary carnage, people.
2. 5 gallons of sugar makes a shit-ton of cotton candy! Hopefully you know some people that like sugar...
3. Cotton candy is popular. If you give it away for free, be prepared to have a long line and tired arms all day long.
   
4. If it is...oh, say....a windy day outside, plan to get even messier. I wish I had more pictures from that day because I have lots of fun memories of what the wind did to the cotton candy...and to us.

For instance, by lunchtime, my partner in cotton candy making and I were glistening with all of the sugar we were coated in. The wind was blowing in little gusts that day and the cover for our machine was either lost or broken so we couldn't use it. Every time a gust of wind would blow, a fine mist of sugar would fly up out of the machine and cover whomever was near the machine at the time. We looked like giant pixies at the end of the day.

Something else that I thought was fun were the little whisps of the cotton candy would fly out of the machine from time to time. The little puffs of color would float away on the wind and find their final resting place on a tree branch or in the hedges behind me in the picture. Soon, the hedges and trees around us were covered in whisps of pink and blue cotton candy. It was beautiful!

Once classes got out, students started lining up at our table to get in on some of the free cotton candy action. I don't blame them. If I hadn't been thoroughly sick of it at that point, I'd have been excited too! And as a wind gust would blow, whisps of cotton candy would fly out of the machine and down the line of students who would eagerly pluck them right out of the sky to eat. Soon the students were rooting for the wind to blow so they could get another chance at the sugary goodness.

Honestly, I really wish I wouldn't have been so busy so I could have appreciated the whole scene a little bit more.

Hilarity and fun ensued for the people in line while I was busy being miserably coated in sugar. Who gets pissy when they have to play with sugar all day? Well, at hour 6 of 8, it was me. So I went and had a savory snack and tried not to get the breakroom too sugary for 15 minutes. That did help some. Is there such a thing as contact sugar poisoning? If so, then I think I had it...

Seriously, though, if you have the opportunity to try your hand at cotton candy making, I recommend you do. Just about everyone loves cotton candy!