Thursday, October 1, 2009

When Worlds Collide












This past weekend, the fam went to a neighboring county's fair. It was quaint, precious, packed with people, live music and full o' carnies. Having never really been to any carnival to speak of, I never noticed this niche community. I'd heard the jokes and seen caricatures on TV. Wow. Up front, let me just admit my bias....I think the carnie reputation is well deserved.

First and Second Daughters and I got on the "vomitron" or whatever the brain scrambling ride was called. I was loving the idea of having the family participate in something as American as a county fair. Loving it, until Cletus-the-slack-jawed-yokel approached to secure us into the ride. Every horror story involving carnies came to mind as soon as I saw him lumber toward us with the grace of yak. I cringed at his unkempt grooming, visible body odor, dull look in the eyes, etc., and then I was shocked and horrified to notice that his fly was down. O gawd! Now I had a decision to make. Was he the stereotypical carnie-perv, or was he "special?" Either choice did not bode well. If he was a perv, I had my two beautiful, innocent daughters sitting here, waiting for him to "belt 'em in." On the other hand, if he was "special," what the hell was he doing running a ride that potentially launch us into orbit???? I settled on the perv option. At least I could karate-cize him if necessary. I preemptively lowered the security bar over us, only making an inspection by him necessary. The whole time, as I'm almost losing consciousness over his profuse b.o, I'm praying my two naive daughters do not notice that his fly is down, and God-forbid, anything else! I still shudder at the memory. Well, we survived, and thankfully, Daughters didn't notice anything "out of place."