Last night, John and I went to the NJ State Fair in Sussex county. I was so excited; the last time I had been to a fair was a few years ago… I anticipated the smells of various foods in the air, the bright lights of all the rides, the fun (and generally rigged) games, and most of all, the wide array of people walking around.
It took us a little over an hour to arrive at the fair… traffic on route 15 was terrible. An entertaining thing I saw was in front of the Chatterbox. They were having a car show and this woman had on one of those t-shirts that has a silkscreened svelte body wearing a bikini. I haven't seen one of those shirts in so long! But the traffic!!! ...literally, the entire state of NJ was headed for this fair. My enthusiasm could not be disturbed- I bided time in the car by looking at the various houses and thinking, “Wow, how long would it take to mow that lawn? At least it would be good exercise.” There was even a message spray painted on this abandoned building: “To Tony and [someone else I forget the name]: Please send me to heaven.” So bizarre.
When we got to the fair, the admissions set-up was so illogical. We walked past a stand that clearly said FRESH SQUEEZED LEMONADE and a woman yelled over to us, “Hey! You have to buy tickets.” We proceeded to pay the $10 admission, which I feel is a bit “steep.” Then she told us to give our admission tickets to the “man in red,” who was about 3 inches from where the lemonade/admissions stand was. Complete ludicrousness. Couldn't the woman at the lemonade stand do the ticket-taking at the same time?
The fair was ok. I enjoyed all of the animals. Magnus was this giant grey rabbit who looked like he could kick Flash’s ass. The alpacas were pretty cool to look at: they make me think of a mixture of a poodle and a camel. It was odd because nearly every animal we looked at had earned a ribbon of some kind. I guess they figure you deserve some kind of award if you raise animals or livestock in Jersey.
John made a good point as we walked around: “Fairs are for family and kids.” It isn’t like I am at the point in my life where I think I am old or that I am “too old” to do certain things, but there was a certain validity in what he was saying. I saw tons of families there, little kids getting too excited about the cheesy fair rides. I saw a lot of teenagers together, buying band t-shirts, jewelry, and other stuff. On the line to the bathroom [women’s line being astoundingly long; men’s line non-existent] was a teenaged couple. The boy and girl were doing that gratuitous making out, the kind that you do because you can---and because it tends to piss off adults. I mean, this boy was literally vacuuming the girl’s face with his lips. When she was finally next on line for the women’s bathroom, he veered over to the lineless men’s bathroom.
When John and I first dated, we went to the fair near my hometown. It was fun… we went on the swings ride together and held hands. I remember him passing his gum over to me on that ride too… hey, if you can exchange kisses, then why not gum? I looked at the pictures from that fair the other day. My lips were bright blue for some reason…probably some blue raspberry Icee or something.
Last night was just kind of disappointing. We ended up wallowing in our disappointment by eating “fair food”: zeppoles, roasted almonds, and a venison burger---unconventional fair food, I suppose. Then when I got home, my stomach hurt…
Last night, John asked, “How come everything that we go to lately sucks?” I wouldn’t say that everything I have done lately sucks, but when I’ve tried to do things that I have previously loved [fairs, for example], the evening just ends up disappointing me. I guess as you get older, certain things are not as fun as they used to be… that’s kind of sad though. We want to go to the Renaissance Fair in NY soon… haven’t ever been to that… I plan to have utter fun… maybe come home with a cheesy princess hat too, after wearing it all day at the Ren-Fair...We'll see.
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