Friday, July 23, 2010

The County Fair


I swear, sometimes I think I am a hick at heart.
But no, I am also a bit of a snob.
Maybe I am just socially bi-polar.
To explain, I have always loved the good stuff. Cashmere when I was 8, Jaguars when I was 9, the list goes on. Now it is Aston Martins. I pretty much thought that I had been born to rich people and poor people stole me. Once at work, we were looking at the covers of the rag mags. On the cover of one enquiring minds sort was an older glamorous movie star, a Kathryn Hepburn type. The title said that the star was looking for her daughter that she had given up at birth. I yelled.... "Mama!".
I have no trouble visualizing myself lounging on a beautiful yacht, in the South Pacific islands, with a crew of gorgeous 25 year old men, the wonderful and amazing man who owns the yacht adores me and is feeding me strawberries from his lips as he begs me to marry him. And I weigh 125 pounds again, of course.
I despise hunting, I don't like camping, I hate housework, and morons and white trash. Except that I probably qualify as white trash when the fair comes. I am 52 and I still like to eat fried food, see who is at the beer booth again and go to the destruction derby. I am so embarrassed. Yep, if you have never been to a destruction derby, you haven't been to America. Sitting in the stands full of, let's say 'interesting people', beer buckets and beer bellies all around, the air thick with dust, cars slamming into each other over and over until smoke billows out, and what comes screaming from my mouth at a pitch unheard before? "GET HIM!!!!" What? There is something that just rips down into the trenches of my gut, words from a time living on the wrong side of the tracks that I would prefer to forget. Okay, I am going to just say it and crawl under the rug later....Destruction Derby? Hella' fun!
There you have it, socially bi-polar.


I got to work at the beer booth again with a bunch of friends from work. I have never ever liked beer. Ask any ex-boyfriend.
Have you ever been to a kegger? A party with beer in plastic cups, guys in white t-shirts, usually in an orchard, always a fight and no bathroom. Spank my butt and call me Charlie. I hated those parties back then but I went. At 18 I wanted to be at the symphony. Great, all I had to do was date 70 year olds.


Okay, back to working in the beer booth. It is a blast! You get to see everyone. You get to see everyone drinking too much. You get to see everyone kiss their neighbor, kiss their ex and kiss the guy they met 90 seconds ago. You get to see jeans that are too tight, boobs that are too naked and cowboy hats on everyone who doesn't have a cow. If you are lucky, which I was last time, you can get a guy to flash you his chest and belly for your Budweiser beads. Woo hoo doggie!


Ahh, the bright lights of the fried food walkway.
Too bad I can't hop the fence & sneak in like I used to.


One of the nicest things this evening was a gentleman asking about us working there. I said we volunteer this night for the American Legion. He told me he was a member and thanked me for helping.
It was my honor.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your father pointed me to this. I was greatly amused by your story, impressed with your writing, and quite hungry after seeing all those pictures of food. You should be writing a syndicated food column.

Bill

p.s. Dorian enjoys your blog on a regular basis.

Amber said...

Hi Bill, And Dorian of course. I hope I see you guys soon. Thanks for the compliment.