Cock. And more cock.

Dear Friends:

I haven’t been to the state fair in years. And even when I did go, it was for work, not entertainment. It was pure, unadulterated hell selling theatre tickets to fairgoers back in the day. We passed the time by inventing a scavenger hunt game. You got points for spotting and pointing out certain characteristics. For example:

Banana Clip: 1 pt
‘Co-Ed Naked ___’ Tshirt: 2 pts
Old person on scooter: 2 pts
Midget: 10 pts

Heather was basically declared the lifetime winner the day she saw a guy with a tattoo on his artificial limb, and someone with 6 toes.

Anyway. After a long hiatus, I made the decision to return to the state fair (The Great Minnesota Get-Together, not to be confused with the Mall of America, The Place For Fun in Your Life). Until recently, I wasn’t even aware that our fair was a big deal, but apparently it’s the largest in the country. It’s also kind of funny because it’s this giant island celebrating farm and country life, right in the middle of town. I mean, if you draw a line along the 10-mile stretch between downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul, it’s right there in the middle. Head a mile south, and you’re almost in Frogtown.

So, Daniel and I headed off to the fair bright and early yesterday morning, for opening day. I figured it was the best time to go, because it was less likely to be packed during the week, and also less likely to smell like sour milk and manure, which it tends to do round about Labor Day weekend. Luckily, it also happened to be the most perfect day ever, which was a surprise after what seemed like an eternity of painfully hot humidity. My primary goals in visiting the fair were as follows:

people-watching,
ogling farm animals,
and convincing Daniel to eat deep-fried food, while I laughed at him for doing so.

We hopped off the shuttle bus and set out to accomplish goals #1 and #2 first (after a short stop in which I freaked out about the high availability of farm-and-country-themed clothing, and bought myself a Farm Boy tshirt). My feelings about the farm animals were mixed; I wanted to see them, but I hated knowing that a lot of them were headed for auction and possibly the slaughterhouse after the fair. Also, I keep having flashbacks to several years ago when they featured the vivisection cow, which had a plastic window implanted in its side, offering a view of the stomach’s digestive process (sort of like the transparent dishwasher they have on display at Sears). I never saw it in person, but still. It haunts me.

We saw the cows, which made me sad. Most of them were laying down, as their effective range of movement was about 4 inches. Then we saw the pigs, which grossed me out. There was the 1,200-lb hog, proudly sporting his 400-lb testicles. I really hated the plain pink pigs. Their faces are scary. The noises they make are scary. Their pinkness is scary. Yuck. Next up were the sheep. Sheep are funny, because of the way they look at you (less “Next week, I’m mutton!”, more “Dude! I’m a sheep!”). Also, they wear funny outfits. Some of them sported colorful leotards. Others wore hoods and capes, disturbingly reminiscent of klansmen.

We wandered by the automated cow-milking demonstration, then quickly wandered away because it looked a little too much like the ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ sequence from The Wall. We saw horses, then we saw ducks. Then chickens, and pigeons, and bunnies. Oh my!

Drunk on bunny-cuteness, we staggered around, finally ending up at the Space Tower. We managed to see the fair in every possible from-above way: the Space Tower, the SkyGlider, and the Skyride (yes, they’re different). We saw arts and crafts. We saw 4-H activities. We saw some weird ski-jumping-snowboarding-trampoline exhibition. We saw farm equipment. I had my personality tested by a machine that looked like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I tried to ride a Segway, but safety laws prevented it, dammit. We rode on a ride that spun us around really fast until we were smashed against the wall and laughing our asses off (Daniel confessed later that he almost puked alligator).

And, yeah, alligator. The state fair is all about scary food (just place the words ‘deep fried’ in front of each of the following, and ‘on a stick’ after, to save me the typing): pronto pups (‘A Weiner Dun in a Bun!’), cheese curds, candy bars, beef jerky, pork chops, meatballs, and scotch eggs (no, I have no idea, either). There’s some big Minnesota State Fair inside joke about things being served on sticks which I don’t really understand, nor do I want to, but if you want further proof of this phenemonon, you can find it here. We managed to eat fair-esque food without compromising our standards too much. We both had fried plantains. He ate a few alligator nuggets before declaring them chewy and gross. We split the hush puppies that accompanied the alligator. We shared an ear of corn. He got un-crabcakes. I had a pretzel. And none of it was served on a stick. I’m a bad Minnesotan.

Since you’re probably not going to get a chance to visit the fair this year, I saved you the trouble and went and experienced it for you. So here, for your viewing pleasure, is the state fair photo gallery.