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One Man, One Donkey, One Mission: Collecting Merch at ConExpo 26
- Mike Honcho
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
LAS VEGAS — Chuck still won’t shut up about CONEXPO 2023. According to him, it was three straight days of walking, free snacks, bad decisions, and pretending he understood what anyone was talking about. He showed up with cargo shorts and a dream and came home with seven hats, five hoodies, a backpack that smelled like beef jerky, and a chair cushion he guarded like it was the last slice of pizza on earth. He also came home convinced he had discovered a new business model: turn a $300 ticket into a mountain of merch and flip it online like a yard sale run by a raccoon.
He learned a lot in 2023. He learned if you nod hard enough and say “yeah that torque is wild,” people assume you know things. He learned never to sit down at a booth unless you want to hear a 45-minute story about a bolt. He learned that free socks are more powerful than friendship. He learned that getting trapped by a guy named Gary talking about synergy feels like being slowly eaten by a PowerPoint. He once pretended to cry while hugging an excavator just to escape a demo and nobody even questioned it.
By the third day in 2023, Chuck was walking like a cowboy who lost a fight with a staircase. His tote bags were cutting off circulation to both arms. He had eaten so many snack samples he started judging booths by granola texture. He got lost twice, accidentally high-fived a forklift, and tried to nap behind a skid steer until someone handed him a free pen and woke him up like a squirrel hearing a chip bag.
One Man, One Donkey, One Mission: Collecting Merch at ConExpo 26 continued...
He sold a bunch of that merch online when he got home and convinced himself he was basically running a small empire. The numbers didn’t fully make sense, but he wrote “profit” in big letters on a pizza box and that felt official. That’s when he decided CONEXPO 2026 wouldn’t be a visit — it would be a full operation.
The biggest upgrade to his 2026 plan is Barnaby, a full-size donkey currently living in Chuck’s garage and chewing on a box labeled “premium lanyards.” Chuck calls him a logistics partner. Barnaby wears a diaper, a tiny hard hat, and a badge Chuck laminated that says “VP of Quadrupedal Logistics.” The diaper, Chuck explains very seriously, is not for comfort — it’s for “tactical distractions.” The neighbors have stopped asking questions because the last time they did Chuck tried to explain “merch velocity” with a leaf blower and a laundry basket.
Chuck has turned his garage into a war room made of folding tables and empty tote bags. A giant CONEXPO map covers the wall. LiuGong Booth F18033 is circled three times with “FREE MERCH???” written in thick red marker.
Caterpillar is labeled “MERCH FORTRESS.” Chuck swears Cat doesn’t give anything away — “they only sell merch,” he says — which to him means the stakes are higher and the plan needs to be dumber.
The Cat plan is simple in Chuck’s mind and extremely confusing to everyone else. Step one: Barnaby walks into the booth looking adorable and suspiciously overdressed. Step two: strategically timed diaper “droppings” create chaos and a lot of pointing and yelling. Step three: three well-placed bottle rockets go off outside the booth — “purely for distraction,” Chuck insists — sending everyone’s attention the wrong way while he loads hoodies into a cart that used to be a golf caddy but now looks like a shopping cart built by a guy who lost a bet.
He’s been rehearsing nonstop. He practices walking fast while carrying five hats and a burrito. He practices nodding like he understands engineering. He practices tripping over nothing so it looks natural when it happens for real. One night he tried to test the cart’s turning radius and knocked over a stack of lawn chairs and a cooler full of pickles. Barnaby didn’t move, just stared like a disappointed manager.
Chuck’s calculations say he’ll walk out of 2026 with 250 pounds of merch. His math — written in marker on a pizza box again — says that equals $28,500 online. There’s an arrow pointing to the word “retirement???” and a drawing of a hoodie wearing sunglasses. Barnaby ate half the corner where Chuck tried to explain taxes.
The pickup truck is already half packed weeks before the show. Empty bins stacked like Tetris pieces. Rope. Backup rope because Chuck doesn’t trust the first rope. A cooler full of sandwiches nobody remembers making. Extra socks because 2023 taught him that convention center carpet is basically sandpaper with feelings. The cart hums loudly even when it’s turned off, which Chuck says means it’s “ready.”
At night he stands in the garage looking at the map, smiling like a man who has absolutely no backup plan. He talks about 2023 like it was training camp and 2026 like it’s the championship. Barnaby stands next to him wearing a diaper that probably violates several international treaties and occasionally kicks a tote bag over just to remind everyone who’s really in charge.
Chuck knows the show hasn’t started yet. The booths aren’t built. The merch hasn’t been handed out. The security guards are still living peaceful lives. But in his head, the aisles are already packed, the snacks are already flowing, and somewhere a stack of free hoodies is calling his name like a siren made of fleece.
He pats Barnaby on the neck, looks at the truck, and says, “2023 was practice.” The donkey brays like a broken truck horn, the cart rattles for no reason, and a tote bag falls off a shelf like it knows something bad is coming. If Chuck’s plan works, he’ll come home rich. If it doesn’t, he’ll come home with fewer friends, more stories, and a donkey that definitely needs a new diaper.
Either way, CONEXPO 2026 doesn’t stand a chance against this level of bad planning and dangerous confidence.