Jul 182013
 

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I think it’s worth noting that when I was typing the title to this post, my phone changed “Butler” to “hurler” which should be a synonym since Laura and I wanted to hurl all day.

Hey guess what? This is going to be mostly photos. Enjoy it while it lasts, k? Because the next 8700 installments of the fucking fair will probably break your eyeballs.

Just kidding. I’m trying to be more Cliff’s Notes-y so that I can get caught up and resume writing an entire tome based on a 20-minute trolley ride to work. Or a fruit salad. You guys miss my fruit salad posts, admit it.
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If I had to pick only three things to do every summer, the Big Butler Fair would definitely make the cut (Warped Tour and birthday bullshit would be the other two). This is the premier carnival in Western Pennsylvania, you guys. IT HAS ALL OF THE RIDES! And a bunch of other shit that I don’t care about, but other people do, like free country concerts or something?

Henry even busted out a brand new blank t-shirt for the day! I asked him what color he would consider it and he said, “Turquoise-y green.”

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Henry called forth the storm clouds with a secret combination of “left moustache twitch-frown-right moustache twitch-sigh.”

“Mmmm, how about we just go with teal?” I suggested. Someone’s getting a motherfucking color wheel for Christmas, boyyyyy*.

*(Please say this in the key of Vanilla Ice.)

Laura and Mike met us out there and I was excited because they were Big Butler virgins. And Laura will ride things with me, which almost wound up being a non-issue considering the first thing I went on with Chooch made me so sick, I had to lay down in the grass afterward. It was the Rock Star and it was only one of those rides where you sit in a row and then the thing moves back and forth and then all the way around. I apparently can’t be spun in that direction anymore, because this is the same sort of ride that knocked me out last summer at Waldameer. And the whole time, I had Chooch next to me, droning on and about the camel he wanted to ride.

He wasn’t pulling a Fear & Loathing — there really was a camel there offering rides, and he could see it from his perch on the Rock Star. I could not see it, but that may have had something to do with the fact that I had my eyes squeezed shut the whole time.

So that is why, when Mike and Laura arrived, they found me on the Quadzilla — a quad ride in KiddieLand. Palate cleansing, etc etc.

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One thing to note about the fair is that it is HOT. And I don’t mean like, “Holy shit, there are so many people here I’d like to fuck.” (Because there never ever are.) What I mean is that it’s Are-We-Walking-Inside-Satan’s-Asshole? hot. Turbulent carnival rides, fried food and rednecks waiting for their yokel-okel country concert to start, all while stewing under Hell’s broiler — what a great combination! In year’s past, they’ve set up misting tents but there was nothing of the sort this year, which angered Laura greatly. She kept saying, “They should have those misting tents here” and I kept answering, “I think they used to” but now I’m not sure if this really happened as many times as it felt like or if my head was just playing Groundhog Day games from the heat.

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But it’s so worth it. Just look at that majesty!

There is literally no shade on the fairgrounds though. Please plant some trees. Until then, if you REALLY want some shade, I guess you’ll have to ride the Zipper.

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Fa-la-la-la-uckkkkkk! Good goddamn I love this stupid ride so much! I was hoping that Chooch would be tall enough this year but he’s still an inch shy. He actually cheered at the discovery of this because I guess I couldn’t hear him over my PEER PRESSURE when he said that he didn’t actually want to ride it. Thank god Laura rode it with me, because there are NO SINGLE RIDERS. I guess they tested it once on an immigrant carny and found him pulverized like a Hellraiser extra.

ZIPPER 4 LYFE! I might get this sexy motherfucker tattooed on my inner thigh. YOLO.

Speaking of YOLO, I tried to get Henry to buy a YOLO trucker cap, and when he and his lifesized frown continued walking hand-in-hand, I considered buying one for Andrea’s birthday but I got sidetracked in my hunt for a Lil’ Wayne belt buckle for her instead.

(Spoiler Alert: I didn’t find one.)

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Chooch’s favorite ride. I’m glad he can ride things alone now, because I don’t have the endurance to go on this as many times as he wants. And I especially can’t exit the ride and get right back on like he does. I mean, I want to lose more weight, but purging on rides at a carnival sounds like it would make me cry worse than the Jillian Michaels DVDs I do every day.

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Do not ride the bumper cars with Chooch unless you have total control. He’s the WORST. And then he ditched me when the ride was over and I got stuck in a bottleneck of SMALL SCREAMING CHILDREN trying to exit the fucking thing. By the time I escaped, Chooch was back with our group, sitting on a bench, sucking on a lemonade. Fucker.

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Not yo’ granddad’s ferris wheel.

I skipped over the Skydiver. The last time I rode that motherfucker was at Lakemont Park in 2009 and my sabbatical from voluntarily torture is still going strong. Maybe next year. (I just don’t understand why they can’t pad the inside of the cages with some goddamn Memory Foam! The physical pain of this ride is way scarier than the actual “plummeting to your death” sensation.

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It was so hot, all my photos started coming out red. (Untruth.)

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Not even ice cream helped cool us off.

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It looks so sparsely-populated on the fairgrounds, probably because 65% of the crowd was shacked up in makeshift infirmaries due to heat stroke and skin blistering. (Please do not fact-check this.)

Be back later with more, oh boy. And VIDEOS too. Can you even stand how high-tech and diverse this stupid blog has become?

  4 Responses to “Big Butler Fair, Part 1: The Day We All Perished Under the Sun”

  1. I’m so bummed that there wasn’t a surplus of lil Wayne belt buckles :(. Wtf?
    “Hotter than Satans asshole” is the best phrase I’ve heard all day and I’ll be saying it constantly from now on.

  2. I almost peed myself reading this post. That is all.

  3. Lil’ Wayne belt buckles? Do they exist really? Because I don’t wear belts but I want one.

    After my motorcycle accident like three hundred years ago, I was all doped up on prescription pain killers and I made the mistake of riding The Zipper. The carnies thought we were cute I guess, and didn’t let us off for three consecutive rides. I nearly died when I came out, and since then, I get motion sickness super easy. It was the death of me, but I still love it.

  4. So true about the skin blistering, my shoulders are still red! I don’t think I’ve been that hot since living in 29 Palms.

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