It's a Given - the Fair Edition

I don't care where you live, there's some type of fair that comes to town once a year.  And like lemmings over the cliff, you go every year, wondering half way through creating the memory, why you do it.  Because if you ever decide to go to the fair, there's quite a few givens.



Your hands will feel sticky the minute your fair admission ticket leaves your hand.
They will feel sticky the entire time you are at the fair.
Then you will touch something (the handle of a ride, the doorknob of the restroom, the counter of the Pig Butt on a Stick vendor) and encounter something wet.
Now they are wet AND sticky.

At this moment, something on your body will itch.
Most likely eye, making you wonder about pink eye.
Or hair, making you freak about lice.
or skin making you worry about leprosy.

I think the fair sends out smoke signals when it comes to town because
there's a lot of people here I swear I never saw before
that shouldn't be wearing that whatever

they think is covering up their whatever
because it is not working.

Who are these people?
Many of them are breeding more fair goers of the future, getting them hooked on the candy apples, the cotton candy and the kettle corn.
Do they not understand that walking around the fair with a gigantic turkey leg hanging from your mouth is NOT sexy?
Honestly, there are a few that could safely enter the "Strange Freaks" show of the fair and be detained because they thought they were part of the show.
Not to mention the employees of the fair, I hope someone is doing background checks on these people because if you opened the dictionary to serial killer, a few pictures may look familiar.

So I am not sure what scared me more:
Everything you touch at the fair is sticky.
The unknown substance on the wire cage of the ride you're getting ready to get on.
The smell of sweat in another ride as the door closes and you realize you have no point of the horizon as it starts going around.
How easily a fresh made doughnut can disappear - after a pretzel, a box of popcorn, a funnel cake, two large sweet teas.
And after all that food you're still eyeing the fried Oreos, thinking, "Maybe?"
That you have to tip the restroom lady even if the surfaces in the restroom are STICKY?
And girlfriend, you're JUICY shirt, obviously two sizes too small with the jeggings is fodder for the Haunted House which was pretty lame and needed sprucing up anyway.

As we walk out of the fair, we all sigh at the new memory, move a little bit of extra fat around and grab for the hand sanitizer as we get in the car.

Ahhh, off the hook for another year.  Remember, nothing good happens at the Fair.

What Happens At The Fair, Stays at The Fair

I just sat down with a glass of wine after 8.67 hours at the Dixie Classic Fair.  Here is why I only go to the fair once a year.


The minute you walk through the gates of the fair you will hear this great sucking sound - it is the gods of the fair sucking out every last dollar out of your pocket.  If you come home with anything but kettle corn crumbs in your pocket then you are a lucky person.

The second constant at the fair is that the minute you enter, both your nose and your eyes will begin to itch.  And you will spend, in my case the next 8 hours, willing yourself not to touch them.

Anything you touch at the fair will be sticky.  It could be moist air from the two millions fryers going at once, or the touch of twelve million people touching the bars and other things that you touch.  Prompting that itching in your nose and in your eyes.

There are things that astound you - like watching a woman try to squeeze herself into the seat on the swing ride, me and everyone around me were thinking about taking bets on whether she could get her butt in it, and then could she get herself back out.  The ride operator delivered the bad news to her as she was trying the sideways approach with the swing seat.

Little kids are cute - little kids with those stupid plastic trumpets will cause you to think about becoming a serial killer.  I think a serial killer created those plastic trumpets so we could all go crazy together.

If you are going to talk the Dad into coming to the Fair, make it enjoyable to him.  Dads see going to the fair the equivalent of heading over to the Lamaze classes with you.  Yelling at him in front of the TiltaWhirl that he needs to HOLD the oversize DOLPHIN so you can RIDE - not flatter and a guarantee he will NOT come to the Fair next year.

Tiny the horse is a real tiny horse.  The snake woman, she didn't really look real.  The Merman and Duck face woman looked possibly real.  Hey, they were on special, only a dollar a look!  We did not, however look at the "beautiful woman who turns into a screaming gorilla" exhibit, the boys see that every morning when they cannot find their shoes.

There are Fair Calories, then there are FAIR CALORIES.  I caught myself saying, "We much eat something of substance before the slushies - so let's go get some Kettle Corn and Ribbon Potato Chips. THEN we can think about cotton candy and slushies.  Oh, and healthy food and fair - ain't nobody got time for that.

Finally, all these may seem funny to you, but they are memories to me.  My best memory this time around was Jeff Wagner, Glass Artist in the old village.  All 5 of us were enthralled for 45 minutes as we watched him make glass beads while giving us a lesson in glass art.  There is a reason he is artist of the Fair, and a teacher at Sawtooth - if you get a chance go and see him.  Well worth the trip.

Create those special memories for your family with a trip to the Dixie Classic Fair, and believe me, I can wait another year before I hear the bursting of a balloon with a bell from a water game.

What are your memories of the fair?