The Fair

Today I went to the Dade County Youth Fair. I kind of like this annual event. What it is, for those who do not live here, is a typical carnival. On a large scale.

There are rides, exhibits, games, trained bears, and even sea lions. Really. There are trained bears and sea lions. The grizzly bear and sea lion shows are new for this year.

The fair started out decades ago as a small thing featuring farm animals. Back then, there were actually farmers in Dade County. There were chicken farms and dairy farms and stuff. There were also exhibits from local schools. And food. And maybe even some rides and games.

But today the focus of the fair is all about the rides. If you want to puke, this is the place to go. Some of the rides are tame, but too many of them provide "fun" by slinging you around in three or four different directions at the same time. You could be spinning in two or three ways for example. Or swinging back and forth while spinning. Or something.

But I like to go anyway. Not exactly for the rides, I have seen the people that put them together. Lets just say I am glad those people do not put together jets. Jets fly over my house sometimes - depending on the landing pattern in use.

But I like the games. You know, those carnival games that you cant win? I like those. I like the "shoot out the red star with the fully auto BB gun" game. I never win, but you are not supposed to win. They claim people win, but I have never seen any evidence to support this statement. I play once or twice every year, so if it is possible to win it stands to reason it will happen one year. Maybe.

I did kick ass on one game. Skee Ball. I totally dominated that game. For $1 you got 6 balls and had to score 200 or better to win something. On the 5th ball I had 160 points, and on the 6th ball I hit 40 points - giving me exactly 200 points. I won a giant stuffed alligator. I have no idea why I need a giant stuffed alligator - or for that matter if I even want the darn thing. But because I am the Skee Ball master, I have it.

I also like to look at the junk for sale. I usually do not buy any of it, unless it is very cool junk. More often than not, the junk is just junk. So I do not buy it. Someone must buy the crap, because it is there every year.

There are also the exhibits. I like to look at these. I skip over most of it, but some things are cool. Like the place with the Floirda Panther kitten and the tiger cub. Cool stuff. This place (Vanishing Species) is a place that takes in crazy animals people try to keep as pets that are NOT dogs and regular cats. There was an annoying LOUD AS HELL bird that would not shut up (I wonder why the owners wanted to get rid of that thing), a ring tailed lemur, and a fat savanna monitor - just like my Max only smaller and much fatter. They should have given me that lizard, I could take better care of it. They can keep the tiger, Fred is big enough for me. House cats produce more poop than I really want to deal with - can you even begin to imagine the poop that a full grown tiger would produce? Hell, they eat something like 20 pounds of food a day. That works out to at least 15 pounds of tiger shit a day. You would need a very large litter box, and a steam powered scooper. ANY asshole that decides to get a "pet" tiger should be flogged to death. I do not care how rich they are. Unless you happen to be the director of a public zoo, you have no business trying to get a friggin tiger.

And then there is the food. There is that "Dipping Dots" ice cream of the future. There is the roast corn which I never get. Then there is the huge selection of stuff that is fried. Always on a quest for strange fried foods, I got some fried pickles. Yes that is right - fried pickles. How could I not get the fried pickles? When will I get the same chance again? Nobody has fried pickles on a menu.

And they were pretty good! I had my doubts about them, but I got them anyway.

I also got some gyros, and an elephant ear with powder sugar and vanillia pudding. The elephant ear was a diabetic coma waiting to happen. I do not have diabetes yet, but I might have it tomorrow.

I also entered to win a boat. But this contest was misleading. It clearly said "register to win a boat" but the reality was you were entering a drawing to win $10,000 towards the cost of a new boat. So if I "win" I will have to go find a new boat to buy. The first $10,000 comes from the contest people, the rest is all me. I still entered of course. If I win my flats boat will only cost $3,000 - $5,000 as opposed to $13k - $15k.

Next year I might try to open my own food booth. I will call it "Fried Stuff". EVERYTHING for sale in it will be fried. There will be ocra, onions, pineapple, bananas, apples, grapes, snickers bars, tomatoes of all colors, pears, ice cream, cheesecake, carrots, and so on. If you can think of it, I will offer it - deep fried. The focus of my food booth will be taking healthy foods - and deep frying it into death food. Yea, the food will kill you - but it will taste good.

People will buy it.