Generally Discontent

Saturday, I went to the fair!

The Big E, that is. It's a giganto event every year, with representatives from all the New England states coming by to do what representatives do best: represent. From deformed cows to squeegees to deep fried Oreos, The Big E has it all!

We (being Jamie, Andrea and myself) took off in the wee hours of the morn (well, 10ish) and b-lined it to Springfield, MA. And by "b-lined" I mean "got stuck in traffic, since everyone in the world apparently decided to go to The Big E the same day we did". But that wasn't so bad; it was beautiful out and we had plenty of coffee, cigarettes and music to last us. Besides, there were lots of fellow traffic-goers to make fun of, and lots of sights to see!

Okay, it wasn't that exciting. Anyway, we got there around noon and parked in the RV section. It was around this time that I realized I had left my wallet in my other pants. Yes, I'm serious. This was made all the more hilarious by the fact that I had about eight bucks to my name. Andrea was kind enough to help me out with my ticket and a few spending dollars, but what about beer? I couldn't drink if I didn't have my wallet! Nuts on toast, that sucked! Fortunately, my lack of ID didn't matter, since The Big E's various beer vendors were - despite the fact that a great deal of the fairgoers were underage - handing out cups of beer like they were diseased children and I was the messiah. I gotta work on my analogies.

Not long after arriving, we met up with Jeremy and Crista, and set out to see what was going on. The fairground was, well, huge. There were roller coasters and ferris wheels, a bazillion food vendors, and six buildings set up to look like the state houses of each New England state. There also seemed to be about four hundred stands that sold cowboy hats and other various leather goods. Apparently New England's teeming cowboy population has only three weeks out of the year to stock up on their "Rodeo Chicks Love Horsin' Around" t-shirts. Poor cowboys.

We spent awhile roaming through the few Better Living buildings, which housed displays and infomercial-like demonstrations of various products. Strangely enough, each headset-laden spokesperson was offering a very special deal at the EXACT MOMENT we passed by! I didn't understand how that worked...guess we were in the Zone or something. I also learned that "chamois" is pronounced "shammy!" So, y'know, it was educational.

We also got to see some farm animals, which is really the main reason why I wanted to go to this thing. I saw horses and chickens and other chickens and llamas and, yes, COWS, so I was pretty psyched. We also saw a guy entertaining a bunch of kids, and one of his tricks was this fake goose that, when he handed it to a little kid, flopped over as if it was dead. Well, it was more interesting than it sounds, but the point is that it's good to see a children's entertainer not afraid to expose kids to the harsh realities of life and death, particularly in the cutthroat world of geese. It's good that they learn early, I say.

And then it was on to the state houses! They were interesting, but stifling. Even though they seemed to be to scale and large enough to house a lot of people, they were all filled to capacity. Especially Maine, where you could get tasty baked potatoes after standing in line for twenty minutes. The only one I didn't go into was Rhode Island because, well, c'mon. It's Rhode Island.

It was around this time that I discovered - through the modern marvel that is cell phone text messaging - that Jeff and Jenn were at The Big E as well! After a few minutes of "I'm over by the big yellow and green tent" and "Oh, go to the left of the stage" and "Uh no, the LEFT of the stage" and "Is that going toward the stage or away from it?", I finally managed to find the Jeff crew, which consisted of Jenn, Jenn's mom, and Jenn's sister Lindsey. And Jeff of course, who has bronchitis and sinusitis, so he figured that walking around for hours on a warm day full of a million strangers and farm animals was a smart thing to do. I don't understand that boy sometimes, but it was good to see him, and it saved me the trouble of traveling about a hundred miles north just to say hi!

So I hung around with them for awhile while the CT crew went browsing through the various arts and crafts and cowboy hat shops. Jeff and I shot the shit while the ladies had some lunch, then we moseyed on down toward the stage area, where we discovered the petting zoo and animal rides. They had donkey rides, which looked kosher enough, but the elephant ride kind of bothered me. It was basically an elephant confined to a ring which was just barely elephant-sized. Kids were hauled onto his back, and he walked in a circle. All day long. Poor little fella.

But fuck the elephant, there was a petting zoo! Lindsey and I went in, paid a quarter each for some feed, and went out a'pettin' and a'feedin'! It was pretty friggin gross, actually. I don't know who's in charge of brushing the goat teeth, but I can tell you they didn't do a very good job. We could pet and feed most of the animals, but strangely enough, the kangaroo (FROM AUSTRALIA!!!) and lemurs were blocked off. I felt sorta bad for the kangaroo, since he didn't look too thrilled to be flopped out on the ground in his cage. Actually, he could have been dead for all I knew. How funny would THAT be?

Suddenly, there was a parade! I swear the thing just came out of fucking nowhere. One second, everyone's just milling about, I have my hand in a cow's mouth, and then BAM! Parade. First came a few classic cars, at least one of which containing an Elvis impersonator. Then came the tractors. Lots of tractors. I don't know much about rural folk, but I can tell you one thing: they like their tractors. After the tractors, Ronald McDonald rode by on the roof of a van or something, and then about a million Latino children danced down the street. It was around this time that I was trying to get in touch with Jamie to find out where the CT folks were. Turns out they were nearby, on the other side of the road from me.

But I couldn't say goodbye to Jeff and gang without first going to see HERCULES THE UNICORN COW!!!!!!!!!! I swear to christ that's what the tent behind us was advertising. So I gave the weasel-like ticket booth guy two bucks, and Lindsey and I went inside to see the horror that is the unicorn cow.

Now, I didn't see any signs that said you couldn't take pictures, so the first thing I did upon seeing Hercules (well, after saying, "Holy shit!") was snap off a few shots. Hercules was a cow with one horn jutting awkwardly from her head. Hercules was also HUGE. I don't know nothin' about cows, but I can give the expert opinion that Hercules was the biggest cow on the planet Earth. No lie. I also took a moment to feel bad for Hercules, being cooped up in a cage with various slack-jawed humans gawking at her all day. Seems I spent a lot of time feeling bad for animals that day.

Humbled and ashamed of my own hubris, I walked out of Hercules' lair and said my goodbyes to my Massachusetts peeps. And then I risked life and limb rushing across the roadway while avoiding the stomping hooves of parading horses, all in an effort to find my Connecticut peeps. I got hoes in different area codes, yo. We found each other and then made a plan: go get baked potatoes from the Maine state house!

Them baked potaters were good! Well worth waiting in line with a bunch of morons for almost a half hour. Speaking of morons: while walking back from the bathroom back to the baked potato line, I saw a lottery booth and thought "Oh snap! I can finally play Powerball since I keep forgetting to buy tickets! O blessed be!", and didn't remember until I got there that I was in Massachusetts and not Connecticut. So, I'm pretty stupid too. I mean, I don't just call people morons and then claim that I'm a rocket scientist, do I? Even though I really am a rocket scientist, but if I told you any more, I'd have to kill you. Sorry, kiddo.

We ate our potatoes as the sun set, then moved off to assist Crista in her quest for...um...I don't remember. She had a bunch of stuff she wanted to do at the fair, so we went along for the ride. But first, deep fried food! Andrea and I went off to get her some deep fried mac and cheese (which is quite good, if you've never had it) while the rest of the gang grabbed some deep fried Oreos (which are quite...good? Well, interesting. No no, they were good. But weird. This is one hell of a parenthetical, huh? So, how are you? Oh, good, good. That's good to hear. Oh, it's not infected after all? That's great! Uh.).

After gorging ourselves on deep fried goodness, we parted ways with Jeremy and Crista, and headed for the exit. But there was one last thing to do: the Giant Wheel.

Now, you probably think that I'm a tough guy. I mean, I probably could bite through nails while knife-fighting a tiger and also orally pleasuring the entire Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad at the same time. Nobody's saying I couldn't. But I'm not a man without fear. And one particular fear that has always been a pain in the ass is my fear of heights. I don't know where it came from, but I just don't like the things, those heights. So stuff like roller coasters and ferris wheels were never very appealing to me. But this journey is all about going on adventures and doing stuff I wouldn't normally do, right? Right! Ugh.

So I went on the Giant Wheel with Andrea. And it was a giant fucking wheel. Musta been a mile high if it was an inch. And Jamie got to decline because I said I'd go, the bastard. In the end though, it wasn't so bad. There were two old lesbians sitting in our basket thing, and they were nice. Well, except the one who kept saying shit like, "Wouldn't it be funny if we fell off??" Damn you, lesbians! I didn't end up dying, so yes, it was fun.

And then we were done. Well, we did have to stop and look at the spas on the way out, and I tried to convince them to buy the giant stainless steel one with the built-in speakers and teevee. Though if they do get one, they should get a model that doesn't play country music videos all the time, as the display models did.

We also got milkshakes and saw a big statue of a cow on a motorcycle made out of butter. Yes, butter. And then we went home. THE END.