Happy Fatherhood Friday and the end of summer!What Now?
Were I live you know Fall has officially arrived when the good old county fair comes to town. I love just about everything about the fair. I love the ginormous pumpkins people bring in for show, I love seeing all the farm animals, even with the smell, I love the overpriced games you play and have very little chance of winning, I really love the fair food even though you feel like it wants to claw it's way back out a few hours after eating it. I even love the carnival rides, even though I am not much of a fan of heights or fast moving objects that I am sitting in being held in place by a thin band of woven fabric being labeled as a seat belt. It is all good.
The one thing I really don't love about the county fair are the large number of freaks that I get to share my experience with. And I'm not just talking about the folks that work there. You would be amazed at some of the people that attend as well. I don't mean to sound elitist...but some of these people are only a bad choice away from starring in the next episode of COPS. But these same people must be doing better financially than I am because they have no problem dropping several hundred dollars at the fair. Of course that only gets you about 30 minuets of entertainment these days....it costs less to take your family to Disneyland I swear.
While my fear of this crowd caused me to use the kung-fu grip while holding my kids hands walking through this maze of freakness, they still don't hold a candle to the run of the mill carnie. That is a whole different kind of freak in my book. It didn't even faze me when my daughter said the tooth fairy must be keeping busy at the fair since some many of the people working there were missing their teeth. No shit. She would use her time better handing out toothbrushes I said to myself.
The best story of the night was the great ferris wheel ride my wife took with our youngest (little know fact courtesy of Wikipedia - The original Ferris wheel was designed by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., as a landmark for the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago. The term Ferris wheel later came to be used generically for all such rides.) They got in line and waited their turn. Our youngest is not big on rides so the fact she was willing to ride anything was a big deal. I took our oldest to ride something else and grab some cotton candy. We came back to the ferris wheel about 20 minuets later and my the line had hardly moved. What the hell? It may cost more than Disneyland but the lines usually move faster. So I grabbed a seat and we waited. 20 minuets after that they finally get on. I didn't pay too much attention, but after my wife and daughter got off she had a look of total amazement on her face. "That was the most fucked up ferris wheel ride I have ever been on!" she said.
Instead of shuffling passengers on and off in a systematic fashion, their top notch ride engineer decided it was best to unload the whole wheel, load people on one at a time, give them one spin, and then unload the whole thing again. Kind of like sitting at a stop sign that only turns green for one car at a time until there are no more cars then it's green forever. All told they spent close to an hour in line and on the ride without going around more than once interrupted. At least they got their moneys worth.
ps. Thanks to those to heard my plea for more followers...I have 4 new fans so only 69 more and have my 100...keep 'em coming!
PEACE OUT DADS!
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Wow! Those same people must come to our church carnival every year. The carnies sound the same too, minus the teeth and everything!
ReplyDeleteAs for followers, I just got two new readers and so my total is up to 41! I celebrated. I have a long way to 100. If I ever get there, I pop open some champagne. I'll have your glass waiting.
holy cow...You have GOT to read my entries from Friday and yesterday...You are going to laugh so hard!!
ReplyDeleteOh, not because they're necessarily funny--it's the irony of our posts!!
ReplyDeleteI'd pay money for the speedo section, BTW. I think you could pull it off...
ReplyDeleteI thought it interesting that you wrote that post and you live the area where I told people to LOCK THEIR DOORS! The Medical Lake Play Dates are on the loose!!
They have "carnival" here ever year. But it's called Fiesta. It lasts about 2 weeks. Throngs of people crowd in parking lots and spill beer on each other. Parents take their babies in strollers thru the chaos and bring home bloody noses.
ReplyDeletegood times good times
My parents used to host foreign exchange students each fall and made the mistake of take the pretty Danish one to the Puyallup State Fair on her first day in the US. Her verdict: "Americans are very fat."
ReplyDeleteThey do that same thing at Navy piers Ferris Wheel. Only you don't go around uninterrupted at all! Just constant loading and unloading with one rotation per car.
ReplyDeleteFairs are good people watching. It does amaze me how you need a second mortgage to buy food at one of those these days. Goodness. I dropped like $30 in fifteen minutes at one we went to recently. Then again, you really can't beat fair food, even though it will take a few years off of your life.
ReplyDeletenot much to say here...except I despise county fairs, carnivals and the like...just so darn seedy...but hell, I loved them as a kid ;-)
ReplyDeleteMy wife loves the fair. She loves the rides and especially the food. I like going to the fair a bit, but not as much as her. I will have to get more into it with a kid lest I become the no fun dad.
ReplyDeletei'm w belladaddy. i also happen to hate disneyland w a passion....more than other amusement parks which i dislike as well lol funny thing is, i used to love them when iw as younger. i think i became a big wuss once i became a mom. i'm up w my ff.
ReplyDeleteGreat things about the fair:
ReplyDeletePig races.
Tilt-a-Whirl.
Fried tenderloin.
Fireworks.
All the proud kids showing off the animals they raised.