Nitty~Gritty

Thursday, April 22, 2004

I knew I was in trouble when the man flagging me to the left, actually meant me to park on the right. He appeared drunk and it was only 10:00am. Later, I realized, this was to be expected from a county fair employee. My mom’s group decided to take the kids there because we heard there would be a petting zoo. Now, looking back, seeing a few pigs and some goats were not worth the three dollars. We all went in expecting our kids to enjoy seeing a few animals but most of them were pretty scared of the ostrich looking at them like he was about to peck their eyes out. Plus, the over aggressive goats trying to jump the cage frightened me a bit. Over to the right, I noticed an animal alone, fenced in, facing the corner. I wondered why no one was over there feeding him our Dixie cups filled with pellets, so I approached, cautious. Immediately, I shielded spirited toddlers eyes. I had never seen a kangaroo in person before and I hope I never do again. The kangaroo was obviously aroused by something. His “third leg” was making an appearance, which was enough for me to gasp and turn my head. Now, I realized why everyone was avoiding the shameful Joey. They were all too lady like to even mention it. I broke the tension when I turned to my friend and said, “Oh my gosh, did you see that thing?” We all laughed and were thankful we didn’t have to explain anything to our kids because they were all still too young. What’s weird is that he was just standing in the corner not really looking at anything, so I assumed he was fantasizing. That, or it found his male keeper attractive in some kind of sick way. Next, we move down toward the kiddie’s rides but first a stop at the food booths. We walked up and down this tiny street trying to find something edible but seedy people manned all the booths. One guy who was frying up corn dogs was blowing his nose while we were standing there looking up and trying to make a decision. We shuffled our kids to the next booth, which featured Gyros. I gently reminded everyone that this would mean we were eating lamb from a county fair, which meant we’d probably all go home with food poisoning. We moved on down to the burger and fry booth where we were shocked to see a woman with so much facial hair that the mere sight triggered my gag reflex. I would understand if she was a side show but she was the one serving the food. To make maters worse, she was balancing a cigarette in one hand and a spatula in the next. We all looked at each other and started pushing the strollers away feeling defeated once again. Ah ha! You can’t go wrong with frozen yogurt. I was the first to approach. A nice thirty something looking man served me up a chocolate cup. Out of the five of us, I was the only one who wasn’t pregnant, so I think he was pretty shocked at the sight of four pregnant women eating. We stood outside his booth and fed ourselves with the only safe carnival food. Suddenly, I felt the thirty something man’s eyes on the back of my head. I turned around and saw him leaning out of the booth smiling at us. I smile back when he says, “Boy, you all sure look like a fertile bunch.” Silently, we gather our children with chocolate rings around their lips and move on. I couldn’t’ figure out what would get the stench of carnival folk off of me so I just left, after buying a blue plastic trumpet. It screamed in my ear the entire way home while I was trying to figure out how everything went wrong…. so very wrong. None of us has yet to mention the fair. It’s like we suffered some unspeakable trauma together and if no one mentions it, than it never happened.