Bizzaro Fair

Hey people. Me and my buddy Linda hit the MN State Fair yesterday and this year we did things a little differently-- backwards actually. We called it Bizzaro fair after Superman's look alike nemesis.

Here's Linda enjoying her Summit on a stick.

I had huge plans to pig out at this thing. It's the one day all year I give myself permission to just eat anything I want- no limits. My friend Beth tells the grossest, but most hilarious story about waiting in line for cheese curds one year in sweltering heat, fending off hoards of flies. When she finally reached the front of the line the guy making them was some super hairy, sweaty, fat dude, up to his elbows in cheese curds and batter, with dingle-balls of cheese hanging from his armpit hair. Even this story isn't enough to deter me from wanting them. That's how dedicated I am to pigging-out.

I started strong, hunting down a mini doughnut booth first thing and sucking down the entire bag. Linda asked if I wanted to share one. "Snort-- no." But after the half serving of cheese curds I sucked down next, while slurping my fresh squeezed lemonade, I kind of ran out of gas.

Here was my lunch-- actually not too terribly unhealthy-- a walleye sandwich. Wish the bun was whole grain, but it was gooood. I wound up getting some apples with carmel on them later, but there was so much amazing food there. Every time we passed a booth with nummy gelato, or funnel cake, or salmon on a stick I wished I could be like a cow and just shove more food into one of my five stomachs.

Oh well. Today the payback begins with a loooong run. The sandwich was awesome btw.

Onto other stuff. Every year, the power company sends some old dude to their booth to demo why you shouldn't play on power lines. The display is unfailingly unappealing, and the guy always seems almost eager to fry something.

This year for some reason they lit up Jesus. Really Excell, hasn't that guy suffered enough?

There is another booth there where they sell all kinds of dolls, and these special handmade ones called "reborns" people buy to be their pretend kid. This is beyond creepy to me. It's like enabling their mental illness.

Look- you could take home the saddest little cowpoke in the west. The kid below her on the right is about to blow chunks I guess.

And seriously-- If I was going to adopt some fake kid, why on earth would I get one that's already crying? At least there was no sound card.

This may not look weird on the surface, but it's right smack in the middle of the fair, and is relatively quiet and spotlessly clean. This is our lemonade oasis-- Netterfield's.

They have the neatest, cleanest, prettiest condiment table I've ever seen anywhere. Look-- they even put out fresh flowers! The whole time we were there there was a guy going around constantly cleaning. It's like this every single year.

Near the end we both ran out of steam and sat down for a while to finish our last treats before we headed out. Linda was the first to spot it. "Uh-oh," she said. Me- "What?" "Cheese curd down."

This led to us pretending the cheese curd was alive and quaking with fear every time someone walked by, nearly stepping on it.

We watched, rapt with suspense as person after person narrowly missed squishing the fallen curd. I provided play by play and voices.

This entertained us for a good ten minutes. Bet you wish you were there huh? Eventually someone did nail it. I supplied the appropriate gory death noises. Oh the cheesemanity...

I don't even want to know how much weight I gained from this one day of debauchery. I'm just going to be really good now and double down on the workouts for a couple weeks. I'll look at the scale in a month and see what's what.

Stay weird people.