About 5 years ago, while I was living in Boston, a modeling agent who I worked with in Portland called me to see if I was available to do a little promotional work at the Newport (Rhode Island) International Boat Show. Get paid to walk around and talk to people? I'm in! My job for the day would consist of walking around modeling an alpaca fleece sweater and trying to convince people to go to the booth to buy them from the nice people who raised these large, furry creatures. I think I was supposed to arrive at the show at around 9:00 AM and stay until about 5:00 PM, which was a long day for that kind of work but the pay made it worth it. What I didn't know was that it would be freezing and raining all day and I literally had to walk around the entire time. No hiding out in the tent with Mr. and Mrs. Alpaca. Thank goodness those alpaca fleece sweaters were warm, otherwise I would have been in deep trouble!
I met the alpaca team at the booth, put my sweater on and headed out to talk to all the yuppies in their boat shoes who probably had no idea what an alpaca was. It started off lovely! I was walking up to everyone telling them about my fleece, letting them feel how soft and comfy it was and then leading them to the booth so Mr. and Mrs. Alpaca could close the deal. After only about an hour of that, I was exhausted. I snuck away to Starbucks to get a latte and continued to stroll around (I was literally creeping around as to waste time) but the time just wasn't on my side and neither was the weather. All of a sudden it dropped about 10 degrees (I wish I could have tripled up on my alpaca fleeces) and it started to pour. And on top of that, I still had about ten thousand hours left in the day! It also seemed like no one new was browsing around so I kept seeing the same people over and over again. By the end of my day, I was miserable, freezing (I think I was actually blue) and soaking wet. Alpacas quickly moved to the bottom of my favorite animal list...
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