Why the NC State Fair SUCKS

Right around this time every year, when it starts to cool off a bit -- which everybody loves -- and football starts showing up on television (college football, on saturdays & NFL on sundays) -- which almost everybody loves -- and all the kids are firmly entrenched back in school, the colleges are starting to roll at full speed -- which maybe some people love, I know I do -- right around this time, we start hearing about the Good Ol' State Fair. Which everybody loves -- EXCEPT FOR ME. In my opinion, the State Fair is the most overblown, overpriced, overhyped bunch of stupid idiotic crap that is available to the modern human. I know I'm in the minority here, because I NEVER hear anything but "Oh boy, the Fair is coming! Yay! Woo-hoo! Yippee! I can't wait to go!!!!" And this whole time, my only thought is this: The State Fair flat-out, unequivocally SUCKS. I think I could have more fun at a sadistic dentist -- and for less money.

Let's address what happens at the State Fair, shall we? First, you have to get there. So you drive over to the State Fairgrounds, and the first thing you have to do is park. And what a well-run parking experience it is! It costs money -- $5, if I remember correctly -- and is basically a free-for-all; after some half-wit "volunteer" takes your money, you basically progress onto a grass field and try to park next to someone who maybe looks like they knew what they were doing. (I'm not even going to TRY to address getting OUT of the fair, at the end of your "experience"; suffice it to say that I would rather try to leave a sold-out Lynrd Skynrd concert in a broken-down '72 Ford pickup with a manual transmission and no first gear.)

Then, you proceed to the fair. If you are "lucky" or have "foresight" to plan out your "fair experience," you have purchased the all-powerful "ride tickets" in advance, which means they were slightly cheaper. So, as you are digging those Wonka-tickets out of your pockets, be sure to grab the EIGHT DOLLARS it costs just to walk into the damn thing. Oh, and did I mention -- you better have at least EIGHTY BUCKS for you and your date, or more like $120 for you, your wife, and your only child. If you have more than one child going to the fair, I suggest that next August you take out a second mortgage on your home, or sell your car, or like 200 pints of blood. Or you could take your excitement about the upcoming redneck-fest & make some serious coin at the sperm donor. But yer gonna need a wheelbarrow for the cash required to "have a good time," I promise you that.

Now you are in the fair proper. Take a look around; it's a sight that bears remembering. See all those people around you? They are, like you, retarded. They have deluded themselves into thinking that all this stuff is FUN. Yer walking around in a big dirt field, with the occasional plot of concrete. This is where they park cars for the REAL events that occur around here (that's why you had to park in farmer Johnny's cow pasture, btw). Oh, and look at all these great rides! Wow! A set of cars, connected by duct tape, super glue, and cast-off leftover Model T parts, goes around in a circle like, 6 times! And it was only 8 tickets! Hey, can we go again? And then there's that great big Ferris Wheel, concocted of even MORE dubious parts, put together by a travelling work crew comprised of recently paroled felons who are paid in alcohol and sleep on the actual rides. With a view of. . . the crappy fair! From 3 stories up! Wow, mom, look at all the dirt! I think we can almost see our car! And these "rides" of full of screaming, terrified children -- always MY favorite company -- and half-drunk puking high school students who act like they're outside of their homes unsupervised FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER! Ain't this exciting? We have to ride ALL of these rickety, podunk, mom-and-pop contraptions! They're SO MUCH FUN!

Then, when yer finally sick of the rides -- or just plain sick -- it's time to EAT THE FOOD (in case you aren't actually sick, the food should cover you). Ahhhh, the wonderful food that is available at the fair. Someone, please, please, PLEASE explain to me the appeal of ANY of this crap? A fried turkey leg? Really? Crusty and sticky on the outside, dry and chewy on the inside, cooked into leather by some 72-year-old Rotary Club misfit who's basically doing this "volunteer" work cuz their only other option was the hospice detail...YUM. There's 400 people in line to get this thing, and the lady taking money can't count to 25 without a pencil and a piece of paper -- which is what they are using as a cash register. Or, you could buy an italian sausage with a piece of onion and an over-cooked nickel-sized chunk of green pepper -- for EIGHT DOLLARS! Oh boy -- home-cookin' at its BEST. But wait -- let's head over the deep-fried stuff! These people have proven that they will deep-fry ANYTHING coated with ANYTHING. Last year, I heard -- I almost went, just to verify this, but I refuse to attend that godforsaken redneck-fest ever again -- I heard that they were making DEEP-FRIED BUTTER. Yep, you heard me -- fried butter. Say wha-? I guess they freeze it, batter it, & deep fry it real quick, and you eat it like a popsickle. But seriously: why? Why would you eat this? Novelty? I mean, come on -- just head over to a college fraternity during initiations & see what they cook up. I'm sure it's interesting -- but does that make it worth eating? This year it was chocolate covered twinkies. Oh, boy, yummy; the most disgusting, industrial, manufactured chemical-laden "sweet" covered in dime-store chocolate & dipped in hot oil. . . It sounds revolting.

And the thing is, it IS revolting. All the food is revolting. It's SUPPOSED to be revolting. And people have been conditioned to tell themselves that they actually like this stuff; personally, I think everyone KNOWS that they hate this crap and they just smile, and nod, and then say how great it is. The "games" work the same way; they're OBVIOUSLY rigged, you can actually SEE it -- the milk bottles have cement in them, the basketball goal is 12 feet high & a fraction of the size of a real hoop, the pool tables look like a topographical map of the moon. And the prizes? Giant stuffed animals? Oh boy, I want one. . . to do what with? Have you EVER seen anyone KEEP a prize from the fair? Except for maybe when they were kids, or a couple of dead-end doper kids who threw darts at a balloon and got a mirror that says "THE DORS" and hung it up in their basement over the bong table? What in the name of all that is holy are you going to do with a three-foot long purple whale? Put it in the middle of your dining room table?

Which actually leads me to bring up my primary point: the fair is the greatest scam in the world. Because everyone involved KNOWS it's a scam, and yet they do it anyway. We all KNOW it's overpriced, we KNOW the food sucks, we KNOW the games are rigged, we KNOW the rides are crap -- people even talk about it, you can overhear them discussing it AT THE FAIR -- and yet we go anyway. Because there's some sort of false nostalgia that surrounds the whole thing -- when we were kids, our parents told us how fun the fair was when THEY were kids (even though they KNOW it's no fun they TELL us it's fun), and then we grow up, realize it's no fun, turn a blind eye to the lack of fun, and pass on this same propaganda to our own children. 'Tis a vicious, never-ending cycle. Any time you have an activity that is, in essence, over-hyped, over-priced drudgery, and you tell yourself that it's not -- you tell yourself that it's fun -- you are creating a level of delusion that is unassailable. Because you KNOW it's a delusion, you secretly admit it, and it's like you enjoy the fact that you are being deluded.

Really, I guess, it's the ulitimate in capitalist consumer ideology. It's every advertiser's wet dream -- a cheap crappy product that never has to be changed or updated. The people just file in like lemurs, or cattle, and pay their $40 for something that costs, in the grand scheme of things, about five bucks.

So, ya'll just keep going, every year, until you wake up & realize that there's a lot better stuff to do with your fall evenings.