State Fair review

A few weeks ago I had the "occasion" to venture into the state fair. Don't ask me why but my wife and I have made it tradition to go for the past four years. It's very possible we're sado-masochists(or just closet white-trash). Now it's seems odd that I'm reviewing state fairs in general. I would tell you the specific state that held the fair, but does it really matter? I believe state fairs are the exact same white-trash havens from sea to shining sea.

Let me break state fairs down for ya. A fair cannot be complete without the 4 C's. No, I don't mean cut, clarity, color, etc. I mean (C)arnies, (C)rappy food, (C)ows, and (C)atastrophe waiting to happen.

Let's start with the Carnies. We all know the type. When I think of them I get terrifying visuals of the characters of Something Wicked this Way Comes. Though something has changed in the last ten years. There must have been some pretty intense customer service training. Now, instead of walking through the "coin flip" game alley with grimacing looks and chewing tobacco being spit on me from employees at every side. Now they are Carnies: The Next Generation. I am greeted by smiles in every direction. Though the smiles don't exactly say "Welcome to the fair, will you please ride the ferris wheel I built yesterday?" Instead their sneering grin says "You sucker, you paid 10 bucks to eat bad food and get diarrhea while fearing for your life on makeshift rides..."

If you wanna satisfy your morbid curiosity you can visit the obligatory sideshow. The featured exhibit this year was the world's smallest woman. This may sound like a good thing to see but once you realize you just paid money to stand in line and look at a human being, you realize the ridiculousness of it. And it's a little shameful to boot. Now if it were a she-male, that would be a different story.

The second C is Crappy Food. And by crappy I mean expensive and it tastes like Sh@#. Your choices for fine fair cuisine are either a navajo taco for 8 dollars, a slice of pepperoni pizza that contains more grease than the hair of the guy selling it, or a foot long corn dog that is guaranteed to give you food poisoning before you see the fair's hypnotist.

Every time I go to the fair I need to see the farm animals. Though once I do I rush through it as soon as possible. Did I really just spend 10 dollars to stand in a barn that is drenched in sheep urine? But it's always a treat to see the prize winning pig and think, you're gonna be bacon and you're gonna be delicious. See ya at Dennys.

The final C is for Catastrophe. This consists of all the rides that the fair offers. I'm not saying there are accidents every day but tell me how you can feel safe riding upside down on something that can be packed up in a truck. The day of reckoning will come for these carnival rides and it will be bloody. I must say that demolition derbies are a guilty pleasure of mine, I really am white trash. There is nothing like seeing two cars that reek of gasoline crash into each other and give the crowd the car-nage they need. I kid you not, I swear that I saw my '96 Ford Taurus that I traded in for cash for clunkers in the last derby. And it did very well.

Speaking of catastrophe, the band playing at the fair this year was Boys 2 Men. Yes, on bended knee and all. How far the mighty have fallen.

So I made it out of the fair alive, but I was 100 dollars poorer and smelled of goat urine. All in all it was a 2 star trip. Not the blue ribbon experience I was hoping for.