There was a game in which you rolled a ball toward some bottles and the more you knocked over, the more points you got. The prize for knocking them all over was a Fender electric guitar. I paid my $4 (A LOT of money to a 12 year old in the late 80s) and took my shot. Miraculously, I somehow knocked them all down (I'd watched some adults try before me who didn't come close; I honestly thought it was a result of divine intervention). The stinky, yewt of a carney was shocked and I started high fiving all my friends and celebrating.

At first the carney tried to get me to go for "double or nothing" but I said I wanted my guitar. He thought for a second and then said, "It doesn't count, your hand was over the line." Not only did my hand not come close to crossing the line, I couldn't even reach the line with my 12 year old arms. My friends and I argued with him but he threatened to beat us up if we didn't get the yewt out of there.

I went home and told my dad what happened and he basically just told me that's what I get for playing carnival games. To this day, I hate carneys with a passion generally reserved only for genocidal maniacs.