Pages

Friday, June 27, 2008

To the Fair, to the Fair, to the Fair We Go!

It is the long awaited Frontier Days weekend in Swifty. (Pronounced Frawn-teer, not frun-teer, just so we're all clear). The weekend when Kinetic Exhibition Park is full of rides, games, cowboys, girls scantily dressed calling themselves ''Cowgirls", and families of screaming children all hopped-up on the biggest sugar rush of their little lives!
The midway is probably my favorite part of any fair. I love getting on rides that were built in the early 1970s and maintained by people with a 3rd grade education. Though in all fairness, the trend for carnies has shifted from the Slack-Jawed Yokel variety to something more along the lines of the "Does your Corrections Officer know you're here?" There's nothing I love more than throwing caution to the wind and getting onto a giant piece of metal that will hurl me around (upside down at times) at ludicris speeds, testing the grit of my gastrointestinal prowess (or lack thereof).
Then there are the games! Oh the games! "Hey there pretty lady, why doncha give this a try? It's easy, just knock down these milk bottles that are cemented to each other with a strangely irregular softball for $16 a ball!" They draw you in with the promise of winning a cute stuffed toy that's been sitting under the booth for the past 6 years gradually becoming the comfortable condominium to a family of fleas! Sure Mr. Carnie-guy, I don't need a retirement savings fund, my future kids don't need to go to college. What I NEED is a $90 stuffed toy that I could otherwise buy at the dollarstore fo 50 cents! I think what I love more than being harassed by the carnies into playing their fixed games is when they heckle Brad and call his masculinity into question. No, he can't win that game beacuse the rings that are supposed to fit over the pop-bottlenecks are actually a fraction of an inch too small, not because he's not "man enough". But good try.
And we can't forget the food. The cottoncandy, the mini-donuts, the pizza, the snowcones, the gallons of pop, the elephant ears (or beaver tails as we call them in Smithers), the hotdogs, the corndogs...OMG...I think the indigestion grows as my bank account depleats!
Ok, but seriously? I'm totally stoked! I LOVE the fair!!! And I will go, cowboy hat perched on my head (because at Frontier Days everyone can be a cowboy!) to wander the midway with my friends, ride the rides until I'm so dizzy I have to sit down, and totally pig out on fair food! Sha-na-na!!!

4 comments:

Mike said...

Bring a shotgun for the bottles.

That'll take care of them, plus any stray carnies.

Don't worry, carnies are cheap.

Unknown said...

I love, love, love the fair. Except I doubt this one was perogies like the Smithers fair. And yet, somehow I find that odd.

It's Me! said...

OMG! I'd forgotten about the Perogie Hut! Yummy!!!

Anonymous said...

Wondered if you are remotely related to Rex Murphy???