I have been informed that tonight, I have to be motivated about my topic du jour, because otherwise, I will "ramble about stupid shit."

Have you read my blog? It's all about stupid shit. The best shit is stupid shit. I could add a whole new classification to the Bristol Stool Scale, and it would be called Type Rob, wherein the shit is entirely stupid and all over the place.

Just like Justin Bieber! HIYO! Don't try jokes like this at home, kids. I'm a trained professional, or at least that's what I tell people.

(In the lady friend's defense, she DID say that it came out wrong, but that was pretty much a direct quote. She has since apologized (somewhat) and has said that she "likes reading [my] words" and "didn't mean to call it stupid shit," which I suppose means that she meant to keep that to herself.)

However, enough of my girlfriend's insistence on trying to carry on a conversation while also being upset that I'm not typing. Women are complicated. So are men, or so I'm told.

Dogs are just adorable, though.

Anyway, what I was going to talk about before I was so not so rudely interrupted (she's now twiddling her thumbs, because apparently I'm just that boring) is fairs. Not ye olde Renaissance Faire, because that's not something that I ever did or plan to do (unless I can pull a Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and cosplay as a gentleman from the distant future of 1899).

I guess we wear a lot of goggles in the distant future of 1899.

Yeah, we're getting into full on county fair territory here.

When I was younger (so much younger than today), we got the day off to go to the fair near where I lived. It was a pretty solid fair, too. I mean, it was regional more than county, and there was a whole farm section. That means that you're getting into rural Tennesseeans, Mississippians, and Arkansans, who (despite what the Yankee Godless Liberal Nobama Media would have you believe) had more than three teeth between them. Yes, we're barefoot, but that's because we don't have to worry about frostbite.

Also, space. Who knew that this was a thing? I worry that this is a sign that National Geographic is going the way of the History Channel, but I'd care more if I watched either of them.

It was a pretty legit fair. I mean, it had all the usual stuff (terrible generic and probably unsafe rides, terribly delicious unhealthy food, farm animals all over the place, weird craft area that never really made sense to me, and some weird auction thing if I'm remembering right), but it was on a pretty grand scale. I would post a Google Maps picture of the fairgrounds, but apparently it moved to Mississippi. What the hell, guys. What the hell.

Anyway, today we went to the fair that's indigenous to these parts. Let's see how it stacked up.

1. Venue
For one thing, this fair seemed a lot smaller than the one from my youth. I mean, yes, I've grown and gotten all bitter and jaded since then, but I like to think that I have my ways of retaining my childlike naïveté.

If only I could blame the Cemetery Strangler on this.

But we'll go more into how small it seemed later. For the moment, what's more important is the means of ingress and egress for the fair.

First off, it's on a state highway. That's a solid start. Can't have a proper fair unless it's on a road that is defined by numbers preceded by some sort of location name. Unwritten rules and such.

Second off, it took us a good twenty to thirty minutes to drive around to where we could park. I mean, we circled pretty much the whole fairground (not of our own accord, of course- there were people in vests with neon batons telling us which way to go). Again, good start. Shows that there's space and capacity to work with.

They looked marginally happier than this.

Then, we parked in a field. PAVED parking lots? At a county (okay, fine, regional) fair? What sort of big city bullshit are you trying to peddle here, son? Admittedly, there was pavement along the sketchy tunnel we had to go through to get from our parking space to the fair, but the tires stayed on grass, like the good Lord intended.

Did I say "Lord?" I meant "Ford."

As for the fairgrounds themselves, meh. They were a bit small. There were some good buildings with the obligatory animal and craft exhibits, and there was a nice pond with paddle boats and such. It probably would have seemed bigger if we had sampled the board of fare around the rides, but that wasn't on the agenda for the day.

2. Prices

 Well, this is a fair, after all. Between renting out fairgrounds, paying some acts to come, getting security, and paying Jedi to convince you that this is the parking space you're looking for, the fair needs to turn a profit somehow. Still, the tickets weren't THAT bad for what they were (the obligatory overpriced fair tickets). We didn't look at rides, but food prices weren't horrendous, I guess (more on that later). The one thing we actually bought from the fair seemed like we were getting a little bit gouged, but it was a pretty high quality product, and I don't really know what the comparison for it is.

3. Attractions

I will be perfectly honest. I didn't care to look at the rides because they probably would have tempted me, and I really didn't want to shell out the money for ride coupons. I think roller coasters are absolutely amazing, and if you don't, I will fight you. I will go all Greek god on you and make your hubris be your downfall. Probably while shaped like a bird.

Fabio knows what will happen.

As for music and the like? Meh. I never really bothered with that when I was younger, because there are better things to do at a fair. Like rides. Today, though, we didn't really bother with the rides. We did bother with pretty much anything involving animals.

It was, of course, depressing. I mean, you hope that the petting zoo guys are treated well the rest of the year, and there were certainly hilarious moments involving a donkey who had figured out where the food dispenser was and decided to cut out the middle man. The cows and horses and goats were what they always are- standing there (or sitting down) waiting for the fair to be over and to get their blue ribbons. Okay, fine, the goats were mildly depressing, because they were meat goats and are basically being told, "Who's going to be delicious in a few years? You are! You are!"

The most depressing part wasn't even in one of the main animal tents. It was in one of the other vendor things. (Yes, I'm feeling articulate tonight.) Someone was selling ducklings for four dollars to carry. I don't know about the rest of you, but when I was an age where I would want to buy a duckling for four dollars, I would not have known what to do for that duckling. Same thing with the chicks that some folks give kids on Easter. Okay, you're going to pet it for the weekend, maybe even on Easter Monday, but soon it will get big, and the fluff will grow into feathers, and you're stuck with a chicken. You're stuck with a big (and not particularly cute) bird that serves no purpose beyond being eaten or breeding and having its offspring eaten.

Unlike other Big Birds, who teach us who to vote for shapes.

There were also bees. Thankfully, they were neither stinging me, nor were they in my eyes, as killing me will not bring back your goddamned honey.

We did end up getting bogged down in one of the vendor tents, because we lingered a bit too long near a vinegar table. It was actually really nice, because the folks were pretty groovy and nice about giving us samples (probably knowing that we were too nice to turn them down when they asked which ones we wanted to buy), but the samples were really legit. Of course, now I have two rather substantial bottles of balsamic vinaigrette that I need to find uses for, so there's that. Yay commerce?

4. Food

Okay, I know you've all been waiting, so let's get this over with.

A FAIR IS A VEEEEEEEERITABLE SMORGASBORD, SMORGASBORD.

Now that that's done, let's talk about the food. First off, fairs smell delicious (except for the aforementioned animal tents, which tend to smell like barns). This one did a good job of putting the food carts on the perimeter so you couldn't really avoid the delicious fair food smells. Yeah, there were some issues with the wind that meant you'd pick up the smell of one cart about a hundred feet after you passed it, but my point stands. Like the food stands. Wocka. Wocka.

"Please leave this to the professionals. Even I cannot bear your puns." But, see, imagine the bit in quotes in Fozzie's voice.

We figured that we had to try something, so we circled the fair to check out our options. Yeah, there were the obligatory corn dogs and burgers and funnel cakes, but you can get those at a church fundraiser. This is a REGIONAL FAIR. This is where all the terribly delicious fried food purveyors of the world come together to show their A-game and say, "We will not go gently and with unclogged arteries into that good night. Today, we celebrate our Food Dependence Day!" (Coming July 2016.) We did finally decide on a place that seemed to have most of the terrible things you hear about (fried Twinkies, fried Snickers/Milky Ways, fried cookie dough, fried S'mores)- Wait. Fried S'Mores? That's got to be good. Boom. Decision made.

It was mediocre? See, what we found out is that a fried S'more is mostly marshmallow, albeit with a little bit of chocolate, covered in dough and fried. None of these things is bad on its own, but the astute ones in the audience have probably noticed that something is missing.

Loathe as I am to admit it, these folks could have learned something from (ugh) The Sandlot.

Where the fuck were the graham crackers? We took one bit into that think and it collapsed. There was no structure to it, and it just turned into a deflated mess (much like our dreams of what a fried S'more would be like).

"Next time, choose me (or one of my various knockoffs now that I'm dead), dumbass."

 So, how would I rate this carnival?

I'd say it was pretty fair.