Swings and A Funnel Cake....That's Livin'

If you are a longtime reader of this award-winning, hastily written blog, you know that I love the Fair more than I love watching Martha Stewart make a lava lamp out of a pine cone, Tang, Diet Green Tea, a picture frame and a hot glue gun.

I love everything about the Fair. In fact, the stuff of other people's complaints is the stuff that fuels my great experience. You probably think I am kidding and being backhanded, but you are wrong. The whole thing makes me feel electric to the universe, like a kid again.

Sure, there are the Dumpster smells, giant swamp rats, a midget mermaid princess and the rigged games, but that is all part of the aura that makes unsanitized America so great. I love petting zoos that leave my hands smelling like goat ass, and I love the chance to get swine flu from an actual pig rather than Tim from sales. I love the rides, with the fear that the swing could detach at any moment because it was put together after an all night binge of Natty Lite and a rendezvous with the Bearded Lady. I love the carnies who look like they are full of pre-existing conditions and one cross word away from cutting me.

I love the earnest country kids in starched blue jeans standing beside livestock trailers back where cotton-candy smells give way to barnyard odors. I love tasting the latest whacked-out culinary creations like fried cookie dough. In fact, I swear I came up with deep-fried butter as a joke on this blog some two or three years ago, but poor record-keeping and a lack of effort have prevented me from locating it.

But the best part of the fair experience is the people-watching. I love to see how my fellow Americans actually look. Living inside the Wemo Perimeter (West Mobile) tends to skew one's perspective on our species (unless you go to Walmart or We-WeMo (West West Mobile). Not everyone in Mobile wears Patagonia, Costa Del Mars and leases a car.

The fair is full of real folks with real canker sores. These are people who are quick to laugh and quicker to yell at their kids for losing a quarter. These are not the people who order a salad at a buffet. These are people who wear tarp-sized Looney Tunes T-shirts and aren't too self-conscious to eat turkey off the bone. These are Americans, and I'm one of them.

So if you want to catch a glimpse of me in 18 days, I'll be at the Greater Gulf State Fair, loving life more than I probably should.