Fair Fun

Toward the end of last week I was getting bummed out because it looked like I was going to be missing the State Fair again this year. There just aren’t enough hours in the day or days in the week. I really wanted to take Sam to the Fair, because I knew they weren’t planning on going and I thought it would be a cool Aunt Kelly and Sam trip (I am, after all, all about the cool factor). I mentioned it to Ashley and she thought it was a good idea, and after some rearranging of my schedule it looked like we were all set. Woo hoo! I’m going to the fair, I’m going to the fair! Bring on the food, fun, and obnoxiously expensive fair-related items, I’m stoked! (By the way, in lieu of their current slogan "Celebrate what's Great!", I think it should be "I'm stoked, let's go broke!")

The plan was for Sam to spend the night with me Friday night and then we would get up bright and early Saturday to head to the fair. All went according to plan, and at 7:30am we were pulling out of the driveway heading to Raleigh. Since we got there early, we got a great parking place and didn’t have to wait in line for tickets. The rides didn’t open until 10:00, so we had time to walk around and figure out where things were (and have this conversation about a hundred times: “ooo can we do that?!” “we’ll see, they aren’t open yet. Don’t worry we have plenty of time today”). We went to see the farm animals since nothing else was open yet, and watched a little bit of the cow show (you know, like a dog show but for cows. I do not pretend to know the technical terms for all things agriculture, hence ‘cow show’). Sam picked out who he thought the winner should be and then we moved on. We saw baby chicks, piglets, a big mamma jamma turkey (stuffing anyone?), cows, cows, more cows, and some horses. Oh, and then Sam learned how to milk a cow. He did great with it, although I couldn’t help but wonder what that cow was thinking. I mean, having to stand there all morning while tiny humans line up to pay $2 to pull and yank on your nether regions (almost surely incorrectly)? I’m surprised she wasn’t drop-kicking kids left and right. And there were 4 other cows lined up that I can only assume were the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th string substitutions after they felt Bessy had enough. Anyway, before I get carried away, let’s move on. We walked around some more, each second ticking by ever so slowly and Sam asking me every 2 minutes if it was 10:00 yet. It wasn’t in an annoying way, but in a I’m-so-excited-I-can’t-stand-it way. We found one thing that was open before 10:00 and it was the bungee jumping. You know, where they put you in a harness and you bounce on a giant trampoline with bungee cords. Of course I let him do it, all the while thinking, “Sure Mr. Man who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here, I’ll let you strap my 6 year old nephew in that thing and adjust it so that he bounces clear to the moon and back, no worries, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.” Especially when he started doing backfilps. Yowza. But he made it out of the bungee death trap in one piece, and by this time it was finally 10:00. I bought some ridiculously overpriced ride tickets and off we went. He rode one ride and then wanted to play some games. These games are insanely overpriced, by the way. I may as well have just said “here’s my ATM card, have at it”. $5 for 3 darts?? Seriously? How do you sleep at night? Probably with one of your cheap ass Styrofoam stuffed animals for a pillow. Anyway, he threw some darts and popped some balloons, and won a stuffed frog about the size of my hand. But wait! For 3 more games he can pick whatever prize he wants! Arrrggghhh. I spend the next minute listening to the Dart Lady haggling me to pay for 3 more games, and Sam wanting to play because he really really really wants to get the big Mr. Wuf, and me trying to say hell no (but in a nice way of course). Finally I tell Sam we are going to compromise. If he plays 3 more games here, we aren’t going to play anymore games the rest of the time at the fair. No ring toss, no basketball throw, no anything else that is impossible to win. He agrees, and proceeds to throw 9 more darts. He wins of course, and gets his Mr. Wuf (which he tells everyone on the way home that he played darts and won a Mr. Wuf for free! Um, not quite. Make that a $20 styrofoam stuffed Mr. Wuf). So off we go to find more fun fair stuff to do. He rode the swings for the first time and loved it, which made me happy because it was my absolute favorite ride at the fair when I was little. He had pizza, cotton candy, ice cream, Dr. Pepper, and lemonade. I had a frozen chocolate covered banana because they are my absolute favorite at the fair. And before we leave, he wants to get one of the 5 foot inflatable baseball bats. He spotted them as soon as we walked in at 9:00am, and I quickly told him I was not carrying that thing around all day, that we would wait until it was time to go. Well of course they are only offered as a prize at one of the booths where the guy guesses your weight, age, or birth month. Since I was not in the mood to be insulted (by having him guess my weight or age), I gave Sam some money and put him on the chopping block. We decided to go with weight. Luckily, the guy guessed him 9lbs too heavy and we “won the baseball bat for free!” And thank goodness, because I wasn't quite sure what I would have done if he had guessed right, since I had promised Sam the baseball bat. I'm sure it would have involved a lot more $$$ on my part. By the way, I apologize to anyone who was hit with that darn thing while Sam was carrying it. So, by this point we were tired, full, out of tickets, and couldn’t really carry anything else. Oh, and I was broke. Not really, but I felt like I’d been robbed. We headed for the car and I watched the mass mob of people who were heading into the fair and stuck in traffic trying to get to the fair. Suckers! You should have come early, then you could be heading home at 1:30 like us. All in all it was a really fun day, and hopefully a fun new tradition for Sam and me.

And, I learned a valuable lesson: when I have kids, they’re going to the fair with Ashley.