[Promise this is the last of this series!]

There were two reasons I had to go back to the Butler County Fair last week:

1. When Chooch found out that I had gone to the fair without him, the sad dog pound eyes he gave me seriously made me feel like the biggest asshole of a mother
2. I’m so neurotic when it comes to photos that the fact I left the Canon at home absolutely gnawed at my heart

I needed to go back with:

1. my son
2. the good camera (it’s a sickness, I’m aware)

Alisha was game to go back too. We decided we (Alisha, Henry and myself) would just stick with the $5 general admission and just get the ride all day pass for Chooch. I thought I would be OK with this, having had just re-learned how to walk without bowing my legs after all the riding I did the previous week. But as soon as we walked through those gates, that goddamn itch was there. I saw the Wacky Worm and the Freak Out and began wistfully chewing on my lip. Then I saw KIRK! and yelled to Henry, “OH MY GOD IT’S KIRK, LOOK! NO DON’T LOOK! LOOK IT’S KIRK!” He was walking right toward us and I was practically weaving a disguise out of Alisha’s hair so he wouldn’t see me.

Then we saw Andrew and his Dutch pancakes and I shouted, “Oh my god, there’s Andrew! Henry, do I have your permission to have sex with him? OH MY GOD, DON’T LOOK OVER THERE!” It was so surreal, like we were walking through an alternate plane, seeing all these people Alisha and I had met a week before, but now they were like celebrities that we couldn’t approach. (Mostly because I was being too idiotic at that point.)

In my other Big Butler accounts, I never mentioned this one super slick guy Alisha and I previously met. She and I were innocently sharing an order of cheesy tornado chips at a table tucked away behind two food vendors when this really smooth guy sauntered over and asked, “Do you think I should put this shirt on, or would it be too much blue?” Currently, he was wearing a gray wife beater with blue plaid shorts. Alisha and I both agreed that he should just leave well enough alone.

“That’s what I was thinking, too,” he said, stuffing his t-shirt under his arm. “I’m Jordan. What are you guys drinking?”

“Well, I have water, and she has tea,” I answered slowly, wondering where this was going and instinctively palming the top of my water bottle to block any imminent date rape. The next thing I knew, he had grabbed his friend John from one of the food booths and, after introducing us to him, smugly added, “They’re partying with us tonight.” Oh OK, how lovely. Alisha and I exchanged surprised glances. Actually, hers was more of a “Do they not know I don’t like dudes?” smirk. There was some more braggadocio-laden banter, when Jordan realized he had a customer at his sunglasses tent. “Customer, be right back. Don’t leave!” he yelled over his shoulder.

We left. Quickly.

And then we saw him again a week later, as Henry was ordering food FROM JOHN and I did everything but stuff lit cigars in my eye sockets to keep from making eye contact.

JOHN. He “owns all the booths on the block,” according to Jordan.

JORDAN. He was actually sort of cute, but his personality was trying way too hard to be Jersey Shore. Alisha said if she liked weeners, he would be her type. Then she fist-pumped.

I made sure to tug on Henry’s arm and point Jordan out to him. “I could’ve had sex with him last week,” I added, in a bored tone, blowing on my finger tips. “But he was trying too hard.” Henry really enjoyed this virtual walk of carnival boyfriends. I think he would have probably handed me over to Kirk though. Actually, I kind of wish I had instigated a fight between those two.

Unlike Kennywood, Chooch was actually very eager to ride things. I couldn’t get him to ride the fucking Wacky Worm though! He preferred instead to ride things where he could make girls do all the work. I really don’t know where he learned that considering I don’t do shit for Henry.

Chooch’s favorite ride seemed to be that stupid Fun Slide; you know, the one that requires asses to be swathed in potato sacks? There was another little boy who was just as charmed by it, and they began racing each other. They’d get to the bottom, throw their sacks at the Mexican carny, then run right back to the entrance. Finally, the carny was like JUST KEEP THE SACKS, JESUS. Alisha and I were sitting in the grass, watching this spectacle, while Henry stood off to the side looking like a creeper. The little boy’s mom deduced that I was Chooch’s mom and inched her way closer. At first it was a brief laugh and smile, a shared acknowledgment that yes, our sons looked cute racing each other down the slides.

And then, before I knew it, she was popping a squat right next to Alisha, and delving into a tale about how her sister Amy was on her way from PITTSBURGH to bring her cigarettes and she sure hoped Amy would arrive soon because her phone was dying and she sure did need a cigarette.

“I’d take anything at this point!” she said, passively hinting to Alisha.

So Alisha sighed and fished in her purse for a cigarette. Sometimes Alisha is nice like that.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to prop my camera up on my thigh to shoot clandestine snaps of her.

I got a text from Henry that said, “You are the WORST at stealth photography.”

A helicopter flew past and Anonymous Mom asked if any of us had gone up in it yet. Rides were $15 per person. We said no and she told us that she and her son had done it and it was totally worth it. Alisha and I pretended to be impressed.

My brother Corey and his girlfriend Danielle were there that night and came over to join our awkward pow wow. Corey sat right next to Anonymous Mom and began pulling out all the Silly Bandz he and Danielle had purchased. “This entire pack is fast food scented,” he said, draping each bracelet carefully across the bag on his lap so we could all not ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh.’ Danielle was excited to show off her collection, too.

Then Corey brought up the helicopter, since we were sitting relatively close to it’s little launch area.

“Oh, she went on it with her son!” Alisha announced with faux enthusiasm, pointing to Anonymous Mom, which prompted her to give Corey the same spiel we already snored through. While she was talking about it, I texted Corey: She just sat down with us…?

Once he learned that we had no idea who she was, he put on this exaggerated guise of interest, totally making her think like we gave a shit about her helicopter ride and sister Amy from Pittsburgh.

We must have sat there with her for thirty minutes without ever making introductions. It was so uncomfortable (clearly not for her, though). When we finally pulled Chooch away from the slides and began to walk away, Alisha hesitated and then said, “Nice meeting you!”

Later on, we saw her again. Amy was with her! We rejoiced.

Naturally, this girl’s mom had to come running over to make mom-talk with me, too. Thank god she didn’t linger though.

“It’s that damn soup place, don’t make eye contact!” I yelled, but then I was like, “Piss on that, I want some samples.” So once again, Alisha and I promised to be back for a full bowl but we stood them up because it’s SUMMER TIME. That soup was seriously good though. I went to their website and they have apple pumpkin soup, so now I want to buy a batch and have a soup party at Alisha’s house.

Eating tornado chips like a champ. (Don’t ever call them tornado fries. Alisha made that mistake and almost got punted out of the fairgrounds by a grisly old lady in a red cowboy hat. It only got worse when she ordered “pop” and not “soda.”)

Chooch just walked right up to the food places and said things like, “I WANT LEMONADE.” Then Henry would be all, “SHIT now I have to pay for this, thanks.”

In the end, I caved and decided it was imperative to at least ride the Freak Out and the Zipper. So Alisha, Corey, Danielle and I bought tickets. I loved Freak Out even more this time, though I was pretty aware of the group of guys across from me who mimicked me during the entire ride, and decided that I really need to have this in my backyard, just as soon as the house behind me accidentally gets hit with a “meteor.” A quick jaunt on the Freak Out will soon become my new morning coffee. You just wait.

Danielle was so happy to have survived her first time on the Freak Out, that she began doling out hugs to everyone.

Before we left, Chooch begged me to ride the Sizzler with him, so I had to pay another goddamn $3 for a ticket, but it was worth it because he was laughing his little underoo’d ass off the whole time. And I didn’t drop him after the ride ended. Not that that’s ever happened before.

I don’t see how any other county fair this summer is going to outshine the majesty that is the Big Butler Fair.

[MORE PICS HERE.]

The morning of the fair, I panicked a little about what to eat for breakfast. I knew that I wanted to ride everything, all the day, all the time, possibly two rides at once if Alisha was bringing her cauldron and spell book. But I didn’t want to wind up puking like Blake did that one time. In the end, I eschewed the hemlock-laced trucker’s breakfast Henry was plating inside a tire, and wound up forcing down a small bowl of cereal instead.

“Let’s pace ourselves,” I said as we entered the gates to the fair that day. Ride all day passes were $20 (ours were $15 because Alisha bought them online before July 1, she’s such a savvy coupon clipper) and I wanted to be sure we woke up the next morning with safety-bar grooves indented into our flesh and a gaping anal wound, a good sign of us getting our money’s worth. But that wouldn’t happen if one or both of us wound up disgorging our breakfast and life matter after three rides.

We had our favorites, that’s for sure.

• Mind Blaster: This was more Alisha’s jam, but I think what she really liked were the exaggerated faces of horror I flashed toward her during the ride. I have two things fighting for ‘least favorite’ position: a) it’s too short of a ride, and b) all three times we rode it, I wound up sitting next to an empty seat and getting pelted by the unbuckled seat belt. So instead of bracing myself against the collarbone-cracking oscillations, I was too busy shielding my kneecaps from whipping belts.

• Freak Out: Oh, this ride is a hobofucker! For our inaugural trip, Alisha and I were the only ones riding it.
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  It wasn’t so bad at first! Kind of like riding on a giant backyard swing set. But then I realized it was only swinging back and forth lethargically at first because it was gaining MOMENTUM and suddenly we were shot up into the sky. I guess I didn’t pay much attention when we were spectating from the ground earlier, because I failed to notice the point where it pendulates you up so high that your back is parallel to the Heavens and your face is staring point blank at all these things that seemed so harmless when you were on the ground but now they are nothing more than death instruments and now suddenly you’re wishing there were more concession stands over by the Freak Out to better your odds of landing on a trampoline of Kool-smoking muffin tops.  You better believe I was screaming like I had Bieber Fever while playing keep away from Ben Roethlisberger’s  protruding dick in the bathroom of some shitty Georgia night club. In fact, my screams  were of such Tobe Hooper audition tape  quality that the ride began to slow down. “I think I made it stop!” I laughed to Alisha, who had kept an empty seat between us in case one of us began to bleed out. “What?” she yelled over pulsating club beats of Usher. “I think I made them stopppppppp—-” and then that motherfucker sped up again in a DIFFERENT DIRECTION and let me tell you, the first round was basically when your brave boyfriend is feeling out your asshole with the tip of his cock. There’s pain, but then you’re like, “Well, this isn’t too bad I guess” and then he plunges right the fuck in with the whole goddamn shaft, giving an entirely new meaning to the experience. There was one point, as I was flung backward, where I saw my bowels exit my body and suspend in a frozen Karate move in front of me. I had a cold sweat when the ride was over. BUT IT WAS FUCKING GREAT, YOU GUYS! Just like anal.

The Zipper  is too awesome for bullet points.

Alisha had never been on the Zipper before and I was so excited to corrupt her. I got Henry to go on it once. He wasn’t really paying much attention I guess when we stood in line because he believed me when I swore, “Oh, this doesn’t go upside down.”

Alisha and I hate our lives so much that we rode it three times that day. The first time, I spent the entire ride fucking with the camera, trying to figure out how to get it to record. This meant that I wasn’t holding on. There are two ways I know this:

1. Alisha kept screaming I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE NOT HOLDING ON.
2. I slammed my head off the metal grating of the cage enough times to do some damage, which I think is why I tried to eat my porridge out of the commode the next morning.

And then something absolutely horrific happened. We’re suspended something like A LOT of feet in the air, smashed into a cage that’s spinning faster than Sybil on sugar cubes, when something FELL.

All I knew was that it was orange and it was a vital piece to the safety latch of the cage, thusly, we were frozen Looney Toon-style, mid-air, waiting for Satan to snap his fingers.

I’m screaming, “WE’RE GOING TO DIE, WE’RE GOING TO FUCKING DIE, THIS IS IT!

I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS HOW I’M GOING OUT, I HAVEN’T EVEN EATEN SUSHI OFF A NAKED BITCH YET” and then as I paused to swallow a gulp of Butler County air, I caught the tail end of Alisha yelling, “—my fucking phone! That was  my brand new fucking phone!”

Oh how I embraced life at that very moment. I laughed like Alisha’s phone was a fucking double rainbow and then sobbed a little and then laughed harder.

IT WAS JUST HER STUPID PHONE! Not the world’s orangest bolt. Unfortunately, Alisha didn’t share my same relief because she had just literally got that phone the day before. I was able to clamp it down under my foot to ensure it didn’t get ejected from a carnival ride that makes the Iron Maiden look like a foot massager. So then my trip on the Zipper became REALLY fun and purposeful.

My foot actually cramped from the urgency of which I was pinning down her phone.

Alisha said the second time we rode that other asshole ride, Freak Out, the guy next to her was texting the entire time. I don’t think I would have been able to save his phone too.

I like this photo because you can see Alisha holding on for dear life in the reflection of my sunglasses; meanwhile I’m like, “Just another afternoon on the yacht with Brody Jenner and Kristen Cavalleri, ya’ll.” I hate this photo because it was taken with the SHITTY CAMERA, you guys. I promise, I have a nose.  That Leno chin is real, though.

The second time we rode it, I recorded the entire trip. It’s over three minutes of me swearing, screaming, and saying “Oh my God” in a way that was meant to be filled with crisis but came off sounding like I’m orgasming. This particular go-around felt much more violent than the first one! There was one point where our cage somersaulted a good 10-12 times with no relenting.

“That’s what sex must sound like on a crashing plane,” I muttered to Alisha as we stumbled out of the cage and crossed ourselves post-haste.

Alisha, on the swings with her precious phone that I basically died for.

We rode one last time before we left, because KIRK was at the helms and I kept promising we’d be back to bunch up our lives in his hands like cum-covered panties.

Oh my god, this was me after riding the Zipper at the same fair in 1998! And I keep coming back for more torture. There’s a term for that. I think it’s called “Katy Perry fan.”

This entry has no rides in it.

We were on our way to the petting zoo when my life changed forever.

“You girls want a free keychain?” An old man in suspenders and a trucker cap was hunched over arthritically beneath a tent, dangling a beaded keychain. He could have been dribbling an atomic bomb and I would have approached him; the declaration of something being “free” gets me every time. Plus, he was only wearing suspenders and a trucker cap, remember. I love eldernudes.

The keychain wasn’t yet in my hand when Alisha became painfully aware of what was really happening.

“Oh OK, yeah. No thanks,” she said haughtily, veering abruptly away from the tent.

He was church people. Inside the small tent, other church people had stuffed innocent fair-goers into folding chairs and were working Jesus-spells upon their wallets. I turned around and found that Alisha had already been swallowed to safety by the 4H tent.

“Would you like to learn the meaning behind the keychain?” the old man asked in a voice quaking with age.

No, I didn’t really want to. But I still found myself saying, “Yes, please.” Old people. The men ones especially. They goddamn get me every time! Plus, he was from the Living Word Evangelical Free Church, and I didn’t think I’d ever had my Evangelical cherry popped. Hey Mormons, you don’t own me, OK?

So I stood there under this low tent, sweat rolling down my back, feigning interest in these plastic beads that are supposed to represent various parts of Jesus’s anatomy or something, I don’t know. He went slowly through each colored bead, taking the time to explain things like “purity” because it doesn’t take much more than a cursory glance to see that I’m missing that in my life.

I had a feeling the black bead was going to represent “sin,” so when he gripped it between his thumb and forefinger I interrupted him with an obnoxious “Ooooh, ooooh!” hand raise, and he reluctantly let me guess. And I was right! Obviously that’s something I know a lot about.

“Do you have religion in your life?” he asked, eying me up behind his dirty bi-focals.

I can’t remember the exact lie I blurted out, but I know it was strung together with anxious stutters and guilty eye-flickering, like it was God himself in front of me and not some half-crippled liver-spotted church recruiter.

“Well, do you believe you’re going to Heaven?” he asked.

“Um, I hope so?”

“You better KNOW so!” and his laugh was served on a bed of gooey death-phlegm.

He gave me some literature and showed me a picture of a waterfall. “Would you jump off that for $1000?” he asked.

“I mean, I’m a sucker, but no. No, I don’t think I would,” I said, hoping it was the right answer and that I wasn’t going to have to listen to him read aloud from the Bible while shoving snakes in my face.

“I wouldn’t either!” And he laughed that sick, hospice laugh again and clapped me on the arm with his bony hand. It stung a bit. “Well, I’mma let you catch up with your friend. It was very nice talking with you and I hope you enjoy your day at the fair!”

And he sent me off with my keychain which was probably made by the collective fingers of a scared and abused Bible camp, and my God brochure, which I used to jot down all the mean things Alisha said to me throughout the day. For instance: when I wanted to get my caricature done and she said they probably couldn’t make my head any bigger than it already is. I acted mad, but it’s actually kind of true.

I found Alisha inside the 4H tent, pretending to have a heart by cooing at goats.

“I’m religious now,” I panted with excitement.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” she muttered.

***

A few hours later, I was waiting outside the restrooms for Alisha, who was inside a stall adjusting her prosthetic leg. There was a tractor-pull going on in the field behind the restrooms, and I was trying to peer around a pole to see it better.

“Why do you always look so creepy?” Alisha said, exiting the bathroom behind me. “It looks like you’re trying to pole dance.”

“I was just trying to see what’s going on behind the fence!” I explained defensively.

“Well, why don’t we actually over there and watch so you can stop looking like a creep,” Alisha suggested.

She’s always trying to make sure I don’t get mistaken for a prostitute, that’s why I like her.

The stands were full so we found a patch of grass  surrounded on three sides by a collection of exposed ass cracks.

“I’ve never seen a tractor pull before,” I said, full of the excited naivete of someone who had just left the porn shop for the farm.

“Trust me, it’s not that exciting,” Alisha warned.

“I’ll be the judge of that!” I yelled.

It was not that exciting.

Sitting there with a cigarette in her hand, Alisha got real serious.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked. I love secrets, but no one ever really tells me any, something about me telling the Internet or something?

“I don’t like blond people,” she said quietly. I waited for her to follow up by saying she’s left a towheaded body count from Arkansas to Pittsburgh.  “I just don’t trust them.” There was a young blond guy standing off to her left, and she pointed at him. “Mostly guys though.”

Alisha delved deeper, telling me personal experiences which have shaped her distaste of blond men.

I considered this.  On cue, a blond douchebag  in an Abercrombie shirt, wrists adorned with hemp, walked past in sandals. In my mind, I ran through a list all the blond guys I know. “Yeah,” I agreed. “Most blond guys are cocky.”

I thought about it some more. “To be honest though, I’m thinking of past cast members from The Real World.” Like that Ryan dickhead who’s on the current New Orleans season, what a prick, am I right?

Alisha sighed. “I love how I share something personal with you and you ruin it with your stupid Real World references.”

She was just bitter that I got an awesome keychain and she didn’t.

[PART 1] [PART 2]

[This may have been written by someone drunk off wine.]

Alisha and I had just bought ourselves awesome rings (she got one that sparkled so she could pretend it was made from Edward’s vampiric flesh) when a husky man clad in the native threads of Holland summoned us over to his booth.

“Have you ever heard of poffertjes?” he asked, his ruddy cheeks giving him the sort of farm boy naivete that makes me immediately want to step up to the challenge of behind-the-silo corruption.

I looked at Alisha, thinking that it might be some weird Bible collectors cards from her home planet of Arkansas, but she looked just as blank as I look 389 days of the year.

“They’re little Dutch pancakes,” he went on to explain, gesticulating to the HOT GRILL and Dutch-chapeau’d broad behind him, who was chatting on a cell phone, a decidedly non-Dutch thing to do, in my opinion. But then he noticed Alisha’s hate/love tattoo and broke character, telling us of his brother’s obscene chest-piece and announcing several times that he had just relocated to Philly from Tucson.

“So, do you want to try some of these?” he asked hungrily. “We’re on a mission to make people aware of these delicacies!”

I did, really. I wanted to try at least fifty of them. There was little else I wanted to stuff down my gullet that day, except maybe ice cream and elephant ears and tornado chips and grape leaves and pizza and fried mushrooms and deep-fried Oreos and 34 heaping ladles of cheese sauce. But I just wasn’t feeling it right then, and I was also a little turned off that he hadn’t offered us a sample.

“I’ll tell you what,” I propositioned, because everything comes down to a proposition with me. “We’ll be back for some of those, and you have to let me take your picture.”

He jovially agreed and Alisha and I walked away, straight into the arms of the BEST SOUP SLINGER in the WORLD. He was from Long Island, which I never knew was known for their lobster bisque and dizzying array of chowder, but why would a banner at a county fair of all places lie to me? Everything at the fair is built on TRUTH, right down to the safety certificates of the rides and the inhabitants of the freak show tent.

This guy knew how to play the game and immediately offered us samples.

I chose a plastic thimble full of lobster bisque and awkwardly tongued it while he watched me with slobbering anticipation.

“OOOOH! LOOK AT HER FACE! THIS GIRL IS LOVING IT!” he shouted to the younger guy toiling around behind the row of soup pots. People passing by had slowed their pace to see if I was female-ejaculating.

That wasn’t awkward at all. It felt like the first time I masturbated in front of your WoW guild back in 2004.

I assume the public consumption of hot soup from Tinkerbell’s Diva Cup gets just as easy after time.

Alisha opted for the cajun corn chowder.

“OK now that one is spicy, just so you know,” the maniacal soup slinger warned. “It’s because it’s CAJUN.”

Here is a fun fact about Alisha! She doesn’t like being told things she already knows!

“Yeah, I got that,” she said dryly.

He really wanted to fill our bellies with an entire bowl of the shit, but it was like, NINETY DEGREES that day. Yes, let me drink down some steaming hot chowder right before I go on the Claw, you mother fucker.  I told him we would be back. And we were at one point! Except we all but walked sideways so he wouldn’t recognize us.

Leaving the soup chamber, we continued our prowl along Clogged Artery Alley.

“I think we Imprinted,” I blurted.

“Huh?” Alisha asked, with a coating of surprise and impatience, which she has perfected through years of dealing with me.

“Andrew,” I sighed dreamily, before adding, “The Dutch pancake guy.” You know, in case her mind hadn’t been infected with his exotic Dutchness like mine had.

“SHUT UP,” she demanded.

***

A few minutes later, we found ourselves strapped into the Fireball, a mini rollercoaster that does nothing but cycle across a loop relentlessly to the tune of popping bolts and squealing metal.

“Am I going to die?” I asked the carnie.

He laughed. “No, you won’t die. Not yet anyway. But you probably only got another 40 years…”

I considered this; dying at 70 didn’t seem too bad.

“…you’ll live to be 60,” he continued, laughing harder at his brilliance.

HE ONLY THOUGHT I WAS 20, YOU GUYS!

“I like you!” I blurted, and then the ride started and I screamed bloody murder and lobster bisque  in Alisha’s face the entire time.

After the ride, he teased us some more and I decided he was the best carnie ever, which was why I called him over a little bit later and shouted, “CAN I TAKE YOUR PICTURE?” because I can’t ever just ask things in a normal tone. Alisha hung back, wanting no part of this.

“What’s your name, anyway?” he asked. “I’m Kirk.”

I made a point of waving in Alisha’s direction and telling him her name too, but unless “Alisha” was my bra size, I don’t think he much cared.

We chatted for a few more seconds, and then I pranced back over to Alisha.

“I snagged myself a SUPERVISOR,” I bragged.

“Oh, yay,” Alisha patronized.

Later, we were on this really awkward hang-glider ride which requires you to board it by laying on your stomach and scooting up until this plastic wedge separates your legs. It was located right next to the Fireball ride.

So we’re just hanging there on our stomachs, like we’re ready to be mounted, when Kirk turns around and spots us. “Hey!” he shouted. “Come ride this again!”

Alisha pointed out that I was giving him a prime boob shot with the way I was squashed down on my stomach. “And he’s totally checking that out too,” she mumbled.

Later still, we ran into him when he was manning another ride, and we totally held up the line as he came down to the gate to chide me some more.

“And again, he was totally looking at your boobs,” Alisha told me, and I think she was jealous because hello, she thought I wore that shirt for her!

I remembered Andrew and started to feel guilty. Surely, since we’d Imprinted, my flirtations with Kirk must have been stabbing his soul with plastic carnival cutlery. I decided it was time to go back for those fucking pancake things.

***

“WE’RE HERE!” I announced, after we found our way back across the herds of prison-tattooed wife beaters and stench of diesel. ” I told you we would be back!” I said proudly to Andrew.

Before I handed over any money, I made sure he and Henrika made good on their promise of a photographical keepsake.

(Have I mentioned yet that I was stuck with the hideous point-and-shoot? Fuck that camera with the Devil’s dick.)

While Hendrika griddled up my pancakes, Andrew talked to us about how the wind kept blowing out the flame under the grill! And that poffertjes date all the way back to the 1400s! And they’re traditionally served with powdered sugar and either grenadine, amaretto, or cassis! And he tried to teach us how to say poffertjes but I forgot before the last syllable had a chance to gyrate off his tongue because I couldn’t stop staring dreamily at him and wondering when he was going to take me behind that piping hot griddle and impregnate me with his Tucson lineage.

Then these fucking fat fair queens came clomping over in their stupid country dresses and tiaras (no really, they were the official fair queens) and Andrew turned his attention on them so I pretended to be wildly interested in Hendrika’s precise placement of pancakes atop the river of cassis. (Andrew said that was the best choice. DEEP SIGH.)

I handed Hendrika the money and walked away with Alisha and my Dutch fuckcakes. “I’m trying to play it coy,” I explained as we turned a corner.

“Yeah, I noticed,” she said sarcastically.

I can’t believe I know how to spell “poffertjes.”

“They’re really hot, you might want to —-” Alisha started to warn. “Or you could just shove the whole thing in your mouth,” she said sardonically, as I winced in open-mouthed agony.

They were good, those little pancakes! Real doughy and soft in the middle, like I imagine Andrew is post-coitus. I’d totally make him keep those wooden shoes on, by the way.

“I feel like Bella,” I said later. “Are you Team Kirk or Team Andrew?” I asked Alisha.

She was pretty much OVER IT by that point.

Vic Fuentes from Pierce the Veil, fuck yeah.

I haven’t even come close to collecting all my thoughts about Warped Tour 2010, but when I was going through the pictures from yesterday and came across this one, there was no way I could wait to post it. Pierce the Veil’s set was the highlight of the day for me; nothing else came even close. As far as I’m concerned, that one short set was totally worth the price of admission and enduring the unrelenting sun beaming down 100 degree rays of pain and torture on us all day long.

I cried through their entire set.

There’s much more to come! You know I’m a wordy motherfucker. (Plus, there’s still Butler County Fair stuff to post about, including a REALLY MAJOR secret I learned about Alisha!) But until then, anyone who thinks Warped Tour is “gay” or maybe just doesn’t get it should check out this article by Alternative Press’s Scott Heisel, because it made me simultaneously say “Fuck yeah” and cry. Music turns me into a pussy, what can I say.

The last time I went to the Big Butler Fair was probably the summer of 2002. This is the best fair around because there are SO MANY rides. And other stuff too, I guess, if you’re into real life county fair attractions. After the second ride I dragged Henry on, he was like, “That’s it. I’m done. Officially quitting carnival rides for the rest of my life. Not gonna do it, you can’t make me, would rather wrap my dick with barbed wire.” And most of the rides have signs nailed up that yell NO SINGLE RIDERS, so that only made me feel unloved and angry. Henry tried to make up for it by buying me some shitty $2 holographic ring that now sits in my jewelry box, RUSTED and malformed.

Never went back after that. What good is it with no one to ride with?

Last week, my bestest Alisha was like, “Pretend you’re my girlfriend and I’ll take you to the Big Butler Fair. I’ll even ride some shit.”

“What does that entail,” I asked. “This ‘being your girlfriend’ thing?”

“Just look pretty, not that you’ll have to try very hard since you’re practically a BEAUTY QUEEN,” she said. “And if you’re real lucky, I might be inclined to buy some tornado chips for us to share. Maybe even spend the extra dollar to get some cheese sauce splooged on it.” Alisha decided she would buy the ride-all-day passes ($15 online, as opposed to TWENTY DOLLARS at the gate, Jesus shit-packing Christ), if I would take care of the general admission. Which was only five dollars. I thought that was extremely fair and quickly signed off on the deal.

How could I pass that up? I put on a tank top that left me 90% exposed to Butler County every time I leaned over, and we set off for the fair.

The first thing I noticed from the parking lot was my old lover/nemesis, The Zipper. I felt a warming in my heart; a feeling that might be better reserved for when your granny serves you up some warm chocolate chip cookies, or when your favorite stripper is wearing that clear vinyl g-string with the studs again. It’s the feeling of coming home.  I have a hard time believing you’re running a county fair if there ain’t no hobofucking Zipper, OK?

And all along the horizon, I saw more gravity-defying death traps slicing through the sky. The shrill shrieks of horrified excitement pierced the air, the kind of wails that sound like an amalgamation of murder and rough sex,  and could be heard all the way through the parking lot. I felt so inspired that I raised the roof right there in the grass lot.

There were a lot of great rides there, I can show you my research for proof, but there was one that I loved so much, I want to give it its own entry.

The Wacky Worm, a/k/a The Caterpillar.

It was the first ride I saw once Alisha and I had our wristbands fastened by the hands of two gnarly carnies.

“Whaaaaat is that?” I exclaimed in that deep, soft tone I reserve for moments of pure majesty.

“That’s a kids ride, Erin,” Alisha scoffed as she followed my jutting finger to the most delightful kid-coaster in the shape of a caterpillar, coasting lazily along yellow tracks.

We rode a few big kid rides, but my desire kept going back to the caterpillar.

“I don’t think we can ride that without being accompanied by a child!” Alisha lectured.

And then we rode a few more rides, like the ferris wheel, upon which I gazed at the Caterpillar from above. “But there are adults riding it!” I whined.

“BECAUSE THEY ARE PARENTS RIDING IT WITH THEIR CHILDREN,” Alisha reiterated, bordering on hostility.

Then we ate and shopped a little.

Eventually, though, we found ourselves back in the vicinity of the caterpillar.

One of my favorite songs by the Cure is “The Caterpillar.” I don’t think this is a coincidence at all. It was practically written in the Bible that I needed to stuff myself into the cavity of a metal caterpillar on this day of Saturday July 3, 2010. At this point, I was convinced that it was my destiny and wasn’t going to leave the fair until I sat my fat ass on that ride, even if it meant borrowing some stranger’s kid. Or cutting off Alisha’s legs and stuffing her into a romper.

“I’ll just ask,” I said, thinking I could lean over a little while pleading with the carnie, maybe smash my boobs against the gate in the carnival version of Hamilton-slipping the doorman at Studio 54. And ask I did. I marched over to the Mexican carnie (Eduardo, I checked his badge), pointed back and forth to Alisha and myself and shouted up to him, “Can we ride this too?!”

He nodded and motioned for us to come on up. You know I clobbered my way excitedly up the metal steps, tongue wagging a little, with Alisha walking a little more hesitantly, cautiously, behind me. She refused to ride with me, choosing instead to slide into her own seat.

I bet Alisha didn’t expect it to be as AWESOME as it was! It was everything I imagined. I yelled and screamed the whole way through, especially when we cruised over the BUMPY part of the tracks! Sitting behind Alisha, I squealed and yelled, “PUT YOUR HANDS UP!” as we approached the big drop.

“You’re stupid!” Alisha kept shouting over her shoulder.

LOOK AT HOW HAPPY I AM IN THIS PICTURE! It was like being a fucking child again. I forgot all about bills and mom-things and the bruises my pimp left across my ribcage. It was fabulous.

I wish the Caterpillar was my primary means of transportation. I wish it was idling sweetly next to my bed every morning, waiting to whisk me off into the kitchen for my morning coffee and angel dust. And it would have a No Henry policy, where it would fake like it was going to let him board, only to speed up, leaving him standing there dejected, with his pants down.

Of course I made Alisha ride it again.

“We’ll wait until it gets darker and all the LIGHTS come on!” I had it all planned out.

“What is WRONG with you?” Alisha asked. But secretly she was excited to ride something that didn’t break her collarbone and leave metal waffle-marks on her cheek.

The second time, we had to actually stand in line. With other children. Like, small other children. There was a mom who was hanging back next to the line and I kept catching her glaring at us. I’m pretty sure Alisha, who was against this from the beginning, was trying to hide behind her hair.

“At least we’re not dudes,” I said as we chose our seats. That seemed to make Alisha feel a little less creepy.

“Hey look,” she said. “Did you know there’s a safety bar?”

I checked in front of me, and also noticed there was a seat belt. “Huh. How about that,” I murmured as I fished for some slack in the seat belt, which wasn’t even coming close to crossing my lap.

Alisha noticed this and said, “That right there is a good indication that we’re TOO OLD FOR THIS RIDE.”

But at least we were properly fastened the second time around, since the carnie didn’t seem to think it was necessary to check for our safety! Now I know what ride to go on if I’m trying to die, I guess.

EDIT: OH SHIT I FOUND A VIDEO OF IT ON YOU TUBE YOU GUYS!

Hey, what do we do around here for Mother’s Day? Nothing. What do we do for Father’s Day? Oh, spend the day at an amusement park, no biggie.

But I don’t mind too much because it’s more for me than Henry anyway. He’s all, “I’m just happy I get to spend the day with the people I love” and, after barfing in a boot, I’m like, “Who, skanky teens in bikini tops and booty shorts? Middle-aged broads spilling out of their tank tops, boasting Tasmanian Devil tattoos and stretch marks?” Because these are the types of people with whom Kennywood is predominantly filled.

It turned out to be a miserable day. It was super hot, which I didn’t really mind, but I was worried about how much money we spent to go in the first place, never mind how much we’d be spending on food and beverages once inside. Blake wasn’t feeling well so I didn’t want to drag him on too many ridiculous rides, and Chooch was just being a wishy-washy cry baby bitch.

I wanted to start out easy by going on the super lame Garfield-themed boat ride that’s right near the entrance. I thought it would be a good first ride for Chooch, as it’s proved to be in years past. But I was vetoed because what do I know anyway, I’m a high school AND college drop out. Henry decided it was best to start him out big, so we took him on his first non-baby roller coaster, the Jack Rabbit. It’s a pretty non-threatening wooded coaster, but it does have a double-dip, and that’s what I was worried about for him. I kept imagining him being sprung from his seat and thirty years from now becoming an urban legend because no one actually remembers if some four-year-old actually did plummet to his death on the Jack Rabbit back in those crazy 2010’s or if it was just a story a clave of moms made up to deter their children from ever wanting to ride a roller coaster,  ever again.

I don’t really think Chooch knew what he was in for when Blake guided him straight to the front seat. Henry and I sat directly behind them, and I watched as Chooch scrunched up against Blake’s side for the entire duration. He didn’t cry, but I could tell, just by his body language, that he probably thought my threats of him going to Hell were finally coming into fruition. He seemed fine when we got off the ride, but when I asked him if he liked it, he very sincerely and sing-songily replied, “No, not really!”

It ruined him for the rest of the day, I know it did. We would get to the front of the line for the basest of family rides, like the types rides that pregnant women could ride and feel confident that they won’t get off leaving a trail of miscarriage in their wake, only for Chooch to say, “Um, no, I’m not riding this. Let’s go, kbye.” There were times when I wanted to push him, but people were looking. So we were good parents and left the lines with him every time, while threatening him in terse tones through taut lips.

I think I told him like 67865 times that he was ruining my day, and then Henry would have to remind me that mothers shouldn’t say things like this to their children and I was like, “Bitch, don’t you know I’m not a mother when I’m at Kennywood? I’m a fucking KID who wants to RIDE some mother fucking RIDES.”

We did, however get him on the Raging Rapids, which thoroughly pissed him off.

Slightly amused after a light sprinkle

Complained a lot about his new shoes getting wet

Not actually crying, but REALLY FUCKING BENT OUT OF SHAPE

Chooch was relatively mild-mouthed for most of the ride, until getting assaulted by the waterfall, to which he exclaimed in a very angry tone, “Oh, FUCK THAT.” He sounded so dire that I didn’t even have the heart to yell at him for taking his swearing side show on the road.

At one point, I tried on a suit of graciousness (it didn’t fit me very well, but at least I tried) and suggested that Henry and Blake ride the Phantom’s Revenge together because the line looked short. And you know, it was fucking Father’s Day after all. I figured Chooch and I could go on Noah’s Ark during that time. Noah’s Ark is just this large walk-through ride that thankfully doesn’t have the religious overtones you’d think it would. It’s like, every child’s favorite ride though, because it’s dark, fun, has moving floors and fake animals to look at.

Chooch has been through it three times in the past, but apparently he doesn’t remember because once we got in line, he deemed that it was going to be “too dark in there, let’s go.” I was like, “Asshole, this ride was fucking built for children! It is NOT SCARY! You watch motherfucking Friday the 13th and don’t bat an eye lash, but you’re afraid to walk through some lame ass boat with a bunch of fake ass fucking props in it?” Oh my lord, I was so disappointed in him.

So we spent a half an hour sitting on a ledge, waiting for Henry and Blake. By the time they got off the coaster, I was in full-blown sulk mode.

“I’m ready to dip up out of here,” I said disgustedly to Henry.

“What, why?” he asked.

“BECAUSE CHOOCH WON’T RIDE ANYTHING AND THIS WAS A WASTE OF MONEY AND MY WHOLE DAY IS RUINED!” I wailed. And the camera battery died after 30 minutes! And half the rides were closed! And I didn’t have a friend to take with me! And I felt fat!

But then Blake, worlds more mature at just seventeen than I am at thirty, suggested that Henry and I go ride something like a real life couple and he’d take Chooch to get pizza.  So Henry and I rode the Music Express, which was fun because I got to add extra curricular punches and pinches on top of the standard pre-packaged pulverizing that comes included with spinny rides. And after that, I dragged him on the Cosmic Chaos, which is still relatively new and he’s never actually seen in action. Until he was stuck smack in the middle of line when the next round started. As Henry watched it do its thang, he gravely murmured, “Oh, Erin…” I think that was my favorite part of the day. Either that or when Blake and I were on the Aero 360 and I asked him if he knew the scene kid who was sitting next to me. “What, I’m supposed to know him because he’s a scene kid?” Blake asked, upset with my assumption, like it was racial profiling or something.

After that, we tried to get Chooch to ride more things but he was being a big baby, and not even a cute one, but the kind you want to punch and then leave on someone’s porch in a laundry basket, so I threw my own fit and stalked off toward the entrance, where I sat on a bench alone. Literally, I sat there with my lip all pursed and quivering, arms crossed, and a thousand murderous scenarios screeching through my broken mind like a rusty train on chalkboard tracks.  This was around the time I tweeted, “I wish I could stuff Today in a cadaver and fuck it in the ass with a blow torch.” Then I decided, I’ll show them, I’m going to leave! So I texted Blake and said, “I’m leaving!” to which he replied, “But you have all the money!” and then Henry left Blake and Chooch in Kiddieland to come calm me down.

Which he did by buying me food because, being the Erin specialist that nine bi-polar years have made him, he recognized in the situation all the signs of Erin Famine. And I was cool after that! We went back to KiddieLand and Blake was like, “You kids go on and have fun. I’ll stay here with Chooch.” Really, this was because Blake wasn’t feeling well and standing among parents watching small children oscillate slowly on hideous animal faced-carriages was more appealing to him than getting whiplash.

So Henry and I got to be a Real Life Couple and ride things together! I can’t remember this ever really happening too often at Kennywood. I know that he and I have never been there alone together, so this was sort of like a DATE. It was weird! And he was really giddy and kept trying to kiss me and I had to remind him that I hadn’t suddenly abandoned my hatred of PDA. He even grabbed my boobs right as our photo was taken on the Log Jammer and I was like, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Did Blake give you E?”

Then I had to stand around impatiently while he played that money-guzzling game Pong Pond, where you get like, seven chances to bounce a ping pong ball and hope that it lands in a plastic lily pad. I’ve yet to see him win at this game.

“This is the only game I’m good at!” he whined after I begged him to stop spending money on it. “I’ve won it, like three times!”

“Seriously? You’ve won three times in the thirty years you’ve been coming here?”

He thought about this. “Yes. So I’m about due for a win.” I had to pull him away. Unless he was going to wrap a stuffed animal around my goddamn finger and propose, I wasn’t about to stand there and cheerlead for him while he blew through all of MY MONEY.

Then the night turned sour. Blake wanted to leave because he wasn’t feeling well at all, which was understandable, but Chooch had to play fucking mind games with me the whole way back to the entrance. “I want to ride this.” We’d get in line. “No, I don’t think so.”

I was so over it! Walking past Garfield’s Nightmare, the extremely docile family boat ride Chooch pussied out on twice that day, he begged us to take him on it.

“Hell no,” I said. “I’m done playing these games with you. All you’re going to do is get in line and change your mind, so stop wasting my time.” And he threw a full blown fit, right there in front of all the other children who were like, “Yay! We’re at Kennywood! We appreciate this opportunity so much, Mommy and Daddy! We are going to ride every single ride to make sure we get our money’s worth, and you will be so proud of us! And before we go to bed tonight, we will be sure to read from our Bible!”

This was the point where I quickened my pace, and left Blake and Henry behind me to pull Chooch along, kicking and screaming. He cried and screamed the whole way home while I stared out the window and tried to remember what it was like to be single.

Happy Father’s Day, Henry! I’m leaving!

Time out. I have some stuff to write about, like neighborly happenings and Kennywood,  but right now I’m too busy listening to the new Pierce the Veil album non-stop (and even when it’s not on, it’s on in my head) to think properly. I have waited so fucking long for this. It’s the perfect soundtrack for the dark carnival in my head.

“Fast Times at Claremont High” is my favorite track on the CD (so far, at least). When Vic sings, “I only wanted one dance with you,” I honestly feel like my heart is trying to escape through my mouth. I needed this album right now, so badly. It’s a shame most people can’t get past his voice in order to hear the brilliantly heart-wrenching lyrics he writes. There’s really nothing else that compares to it in the scene today.

Sunday was a shitty day. Nothing major happened, like death or amputation or Miley Cyrus subjection, but it was just one of those hassle-filled days where nothing goes right and you feel lonely and miserable and wonder all day long why you even bothered getting out of bed.

But then that night, after Chooch went to sleep and Blake went out with friends, Henry and I sat on the couch and listened to the Selfish Machines together in its entirety and it was kind of fucking perfect.

After yesterday’s heavy entry, I wanted to lighten the mood a little, so here’s that stupid video I kept threatening to post of Corey, Janna, Blake and me on some ridiculous ride at the Westmoreland County Fair called High Roller.This is from two summers ago. I know that because last summer, Blake brought Deanna with him and was too cool (and busy playing Bingo with the elderly) to ride anything with us lowlifes!

I just want to add that I am always the first to get annoyed at people who find themselves in front of  a camera, seemingly for the first time ever, and immediately flip the bird or do something else equally as stupid and trite. It’s almost embarrassing to look at. So what do I do? Act like this is the first time I’ve been in front of a camera! “Oh, you’re recording right now? Let me stick out my tongue and make a stupid sound for you, because everyone will think, ‘Wow, that was really cool and funny – why have I not ever thought to pull a face like that?'”

I have to live with myself. Be glad you don’t.

Also, I clearly just learnededed how to do annotations on YouTube videos; oh I am so advanced!

OH SHIT, I found (and I do mean pointedly, not accidentally, in that I took time out of my busy and important day to seek out these particular photos) all these old pictures from some rickety mall parking lot carnival Henry and I took his kids to back in 2003. In 2003! I was only 23! Oh, youth. Somehow though, I feel I’m more immature now than I was then. A real grown child.

This is what I wrote in my LiveJournal (don’t you wish I was still as verbose as I was in 2003? I mean, holy shit, an entire paragraph! And now I’m all succinct and shit.):

Yesterday, Henry and I took his kids to the little carnival in the mall parking lot. Actually, it was a pretty big carnival.

It had all the best rides in the death trap vein. I was excited to have a riding partner for once (since Henry and my friends are motion-sickness losers). Blake and I got ride all day passes and set off on our mission to ride every ride at least ten times. Not quite. I was fine until probably the sixth ride that we went on. What did it was that we were literally the only two people there that were riding anything, so we walked off one ride and right onto the next. We didn’t give our tummies a chance to rest. At all. So here I am, having hot flashes and feeling like the collar of my shirt is too tight around my neck. But I perservered. I didn’t want Blake to think I was lame. Apparently, Blake was playing the same game. He was sick as well, but kept on keepin’ on. After we went on the Ring of Fire, we looked at each other knowingly and sat at a table. Once we were composed, or so we thought, we asked Henry if we could leave. I had to do breathing exercises the entire way home in the car, to ensure that I wouldn’t vomit all over myself.

Unfortunately, Blake must not have learned this strategy, because he threw up out the window, and it hit the car behind us. Robbie and Henry were laughing, which I didn’t think was very cool. Although, if my breakfast wasn’t touching my tonsils (which I don’t have anymore, but that sounded so cool), I probably would have been laughing, too.

Yeah, we rode all day, alright. For a whole whopping forty five minutes.

OH NO, it’s THE CLAW! This might be my favorite carnival ride of ALL TIME. It tries to distract you with all the airbrushed Jem and the Holograms rejects, but then it starts and it’s all SHIT JUST GOT REAL, MOTHERFUCKERS. I made Henry ride this with me the last time we went to the Big Butler County Fair, which I think was in 2002. He’s proudly worn his Carnival Ride Abstinence ring ever since.

Livin’ it up on The Claw. After our first go-around, I was convinced I wanted to have Michael Jackson’s baby so I could move into Neverland and have him plant one of these bastards right behind the roller rink he’d have previously built in preparation of my arrival to the ranch.

This was Blake and me after riding The Claw for the fifth time. I was over it. Completely over it.

(I kind of wish I could dive into this photo and punch myself in the vag for ever thinking I was fat back then.)

Also, it was like 50 degrees in May.

Look! It’s Robbie’s head. This was one of the few times he wasn’t braving the fun house, which he continuously did the entire time,  since it was the only thing he could handle. I think he even started timing himself, pretending he was training for a real life World of Warcraft bootcamp.

This ride really starts to feel like quadruplet-induced morning sickness after the third go-around. You can see how happy I am.

YEAH THE MOTHERFUCKING RING OF FIRE! I don’t think this is what Johnny Cash had in mind, unless the song is about virtual evisceration by the hand of centrifugal force (if that’s wrong, then just insert proper physics term here) while cycling upside down inside a caged roller coaster. I didn’t even wait for Blake as he was stumbling around, gathering his bowels off the ground like a fucking garden hose.

OH YEAH, IT’S ALL FUN AND GAMES ON THE ZIPPER, BITCHES. I’m pretty sure I was thinking to myself, “I’m so glad I haven’t yet given Blake a reason to go home and tell his mother I vomited on his face.” Also – look at my fucking Leno chin. Jesus Christ.

You can tell Blake was trying so hard to not puke. This was one of our mutually agreed upon “time outs.

” But I don’t think we ever declared it “time in” after that.

It’s almost time for all the county fairs to start a’happenin’!! I can barely contain my excitement!

Since I have a job this summer (as opposed to last summer when I did not have a job), I’m determined to go to every single fair.

Not in the country. Just in Western Pennsylvania. Unless someone out there wants to sponsor me to go on a cross-country county fair run. Because I’d do it, if you really wanted me to.

The only problem is that none of my fair companions like spinny rides and spinny rides are my favorite rides.

I’m also excited for Kennywood (our local amusement park)! So excited that I’ve been reading old posts I’ve written about Kennywood and, even before the park season started, I’d suggest to Henry, “Oh my god, let’s drive past Kennywood!” and he’d be like, “Why? That’s so gay.” And then I’d have to remind him about the Hilary Duff PSA on MTV and remind him that what he really meant to say was, “That’s so Henry.”

Two weeks ago, I made him drive past on a Saturday night. You know, just so Chooch and I can see the lights. The problem with Kennywood is that there’s only a small stretch of road that passes it so it’s all, “OMG THERE’S THE SWINGSH—-THERE’S THE PIRATE SH—-THERE’S THE BUMPER—” and then it’s gone.

But it’s totally worth it and gets me so pumped, even though I act like an orphan excited to see real life parents for 30 seconds before they’re whisked away.

The other night I had a dream that there was some contest somewhere (probably in the back of some Bulgarian porn rag) to win a trip to the county fair with me and NO ONE ENTERED. I guess you could say I had a big sad when I woke up.

A very big sad.

An epic sad, even.

It’s out of my system now. Just like yesterday’s lunch. OM NOM NOM.

OK! I’m done. LOLspeak does not suit me. I’ll stick to superfluous swearing.

What summer staples do you most look forward to? Tell me now!

You know that game, Roller Coaster Tycoon? The game where you build your own theme park and it’s supposed to be totally fantastical? Imagine you’re  me, playing that game and getting frustrated after ten minutes, leaving half the park unpaved with rides (the cheapest ones because you’re on a budget) plunked down intermittently with little to no planning and at some point you notice that there’s a giant, gaping vacant lot between the bluegrass band playing on a shoddy stage and the cinder block arcade that smells like b.o. and cabbage and what better way to get people to form a human-worm than by dropping down a Monster Truck and offering rides, and then you start to get out of control and before you know it, you’ve built a stand shilling $7 gyros and a pavilion pawning Christian-inspired wreaths. And please make sure half of your rides aren’t running.

Now imagine this is a real life park and you know exactly what Lakemont Park in Altoona, PA is like.

And for some reason, we decided to go back. Well, the $5 admission might be a good reason.

Blake opted out this year, maybe because last year he was the equivalent of tossing Dennis Rodman into a camp of albino midgets. In Pittsburgh, he mostly doesn’t stand out. But in Altoona? A town where the inhabitants still bust out their Desert Storm sweatshirts? A town like that, someone like Blake gets more than his fair share of stares. So Alisha filled in for him, and Corey, who goes to school somewhat nearby at Pitt-Johnstown, met us out there. When he called me upon arrival at the park, I helpfully told him that I was wearing a pink hoodie.

“Because your brother hasn’t met you before?” Alisha asked snidely.

Alisha wouldn’t ride the old cars with me, choosing instead to wait for her own car. Now that I think about it, this might have been the only time all day where I wasn’t called “stupid” on a ride. Perhaps riding alone has its perks.

Oh, the Toboggan! How I missed thee. Alisha actually rode with me on this one. She bit her tongue when the car got to the top of the tunnel and I didn’t find out until later, but that didn’t make me laugh any less.

I had a crush on pretty much every boy working there, except for the yokel who was manning the Scrambler, who had Alisha and me get on first, causing us to nearly squash the shit out of my three-year-old. My right bicep was on fire afterward from all the bracing I did. And then you would think he would stick around after unlatching our car to ensure Chooch’s feet safely met the ground but NO. He walked away, leaving me to hold Chooch’s hand as he jumped off the ride, bending my arm in a way that only Gumby should be familiar with. I couldn’t hold on to his hand any longer, so he ended up FALLING OFF THE RIDE AND LANDING ON HIS BACK UNDER THE CAR.

Mother of the Motherfucking Year, right here.

Thankfully he didn’t get hurt, but I know it must have been jolting for him. He stood up and brushed himself off while I was all, “OMGOMGOMG” and Henry was standing on the other side of the fence, watching this whole spectacle, rolling his eyes at my incompetence. It was an awesome moment for the scrapbook.

He apparently wasn’t too traumatized by my Spears-ism, because he rode it again later with Corey.

Corey out-mothered me by assuring that Chooch’s feet were firmly planted on the gravel before letting go.

Leap the Dips is the oldest working roller coaster in the country or solar system or some shit. I forced Chooch to ride it, because even though he was dragging his feet, I knew he’d be ok and I really want to infuse him with coaster-lust as soon as possible so that I’ll have a ready-made riding partner at some point. I mean, this coaster is so ridiculously tame, there aren’t even any seat belts. It goes, like, 5mph. Chooch was still insisting that he didn’t want to ride it as Henry got him situated in the backseat, but I whittled away at his masculinity like any good parent would do in a situation like this, pointing out all the little GIRLS who had ridden it before him and come off enthusing and expounding the merits of this coaster granddaddy, and before he knew it, we were at the top of the hill and coasting languidly over shallow dips. I stole a few glances behind me and Chooch’s face was in a paralytic state of shock, but by the time the ride was over, he was all “Woo hoo, that was awesome.”

Chooch pulled it off with more aplomb than Corey, at least.

This photo was taken moments after Corey confessed that he made up the “life changing moment” speech he had to give in his public speaking class. Apparently, we had an Uncle John who never married and therefore treated us as his own children, so when he ended up dying of brain cancer, Corey took it tremendously hard and still wears the deathbed cross that good old unkie bestowed upon him shortly before giving up the ghost. This was the moment I realized that for sure, with no doubt, Corey is my brother.

I’m trying to get Henry to funnelcake-house our living room. It’s not going very well, but I have some secret weapons I’ve yet to unleash. And by that I mean hedge clippers and a taser.

We spent some time in the stinky, humid locker room of an arcade for some reason.

I tried to give that son of a bitchin’ lion a high-five afterward and he completely snubbed me.

People kept staring me down, giving me blatant once-overs. And I didn’t even have pink hair yet. That’s Lakemont for you.

Alisha, Corey and I rode the Monster with a mother who insisted on bringing aboard her 2-year-old daughter. I was frightened for her. And for my safety because I’ll be damned I’m getting clocked in the head by a toddler upchucked by a ride whose height restrictions she wouldn’t meet at any other respectable amusement park. Right as the ride started, Corey hollered, “Remind me to tell you something funny about September 11th!”, a statement which is #8 in the “How To Silence a Crowd” handbook. He also belted out “Vagina!” at one point and at first I was like, “Dude, there’s a small child on this ride with us!” but a quick once-over of her mother gave me gruesome sepia-toned visions of belligerent battles with a drunk husband/boyfriend over top a dinner table set with greasy buckets of fried chicken and cans of Pabst and a bathroom laden with hyperdermic needles so at that point I felt free to verbally masturbate with every cuss-combo I could think of as Alisha made our little monster tentacle pendulate so fast that I couldn’t breathe through the laughter, forcing her to yell, “You’re stupid” for the 678th time that day.

Remember last year when Blake and I rode a metal monstrosity called the Skydiver because it looked like a harmless yet fun take on a ferris wheel? And I vowed to never ride it again? And I said shit like this about it?

See this ride? This is a fucking ride built by the cooperative genius of Hitler, Satan and Mr. Burns and camouflaged behind the cute and fuzzy appearance of a ferris wheel. LOOK CLOSELY. LOOK AT THOSE CARS, JUST DANGLING THERE HARRY CAREY. LOOK AT HOW SOME OF THEM ARE UPSIDE DOWN AND POINTED TOWARD THE HARD, GRITTY SURFACE OF THE EARTH.

Of course, Blake and I simultaneously salivated at the sight of a metal contraption that could potentially send us spiraling to a grisly demise, after which I would hope our mangled, mashed, and possibly vivisected corpses would be studied laboriously and recreated for the next “Final Destination.”

No one was in line when we approached, but a trio of teenaged girls stood near by, ogling its height with craned necks. We assumed that the ramp they were standing near was the entrance, but it turned out to be the exit so we were sent away by the two greasy beer-bellied attendants. As we passed the girls on our way to the real entrance, one of them said, “Oops, we made them think this is the entrance by standing here,” and I called out, “I know! Now we look dumb!”

NO, WE LOOKED DUMB FOR WILLINGLY PUTTING OUR LIVES INTO THE FATE OF THIS FUCKING RIDE THAT THEY CALL THE SKYDIVER. First, the padded bar was slammed down onto legs and applied so much pressure that I went numb below the knees. It created a beautiful illusion of amputation, so much that I began complaining of phantom limb pain before the ride even started.

Did I mention we were the only ones riding it?

We hadn’t even made a full revolution before my body was wedged against the side of the cage, leaving a very fashionable waffle print against the side of my face, and I’m not sure but I think my bowels were capsizing. Our cage was spinning and revolving and flipping in so many different directions, and combined with revolutions of the actual wheel itself, I had no fucking idea what direction we were facing. Except when our cage was pointing straight down to the ground, giving us the delightful sensation of plummeting toward Hell.

I knew we were at the bottom when I would catch blurred glimpses of the neon green shirts of the attendants, so I would scream – NAY, bellow – “PLEASE LET US OFF THIS FUCKING RIDE. OMG FUCK YOU PLZ.” I began wondering if it would count if I quickly typed up a Living Will on my Blackberry. I think Blake was crying. Every time it would fling us upside down, my arms would shoot out to brace myself, even though the lap bar was ensuring that nary a penny could escape.

Just then, the spinning began to slow, gears cranked and ground, and eventually we slowed to a stop near the attendants.

My hand flung to my heart and I started to thank them, but my words slurred AS THE RIDE EMBARKED ON A BRAND NEW CYCLE, BACKWARD.

My body gave up fighting and resumed its former position, smashed against the grated window of our torture cell. I began clenching, to prevent any accidental pants-poopage. “Please God, don’t let me poop my pants in front of Blake. He’ll tell all of MySpace” I prayed to the giant pink plastic heart pendant that became my makeshift Skydiver rosary. That’s what fifteen-year-olds do, you know. Send out bulletins, outing adults who poop their pants. That’s what’s I’d do too, if the opportunity ever presented itself.

The first round was obnoxious, but tolerable, like watching an anal fisting. You grimace, you laugh at the enlarged asshole, you cry a little. But then the Skydiver decided it had to go backward too, and that was about as unnecessary and gratuitous as the part where the girl shits on a glass table.

And that is how the Skydiver is quite like a Japanese porn.

Well, because I’ve clearly been fucked with the Downs dildo somewhere along the cobblestone road to the whorehouse, I rode it again this time. TWICE. IN A ROW. There’s no single riders, probably because without that extra slab of flesh in the cage with you, you’re more likely to oscillate the cage right off its hinges and soar into orbit. Or crash in a heap of mangled metal and annhilated anatomy.

The first time, I rode with Alisha. After ensuring our ovaries were sufficiently dessicated under the pressure of a large padded saftey bar, the real life before picture of a Proactive Ad slammed our cage shut and sent us off into oblivion where flashbacks of last year’s crucifixion inside a life-sized cheese grater came crashing back to me like a meteor into earth. There’s one point of this ride where it stops. Just fucking STOPS while you’re at its pinnacle, vignettes of Christmas past zooming by your eyes like a crudely drawn flip-book, and once you get around the dizzying sensation of being a trillion feet from cement you realize that you’re suspended in some sort of doggy-style position thanks to the padded bar that’s keeping your lower half melded into the seat, and then you can’t help but think that Elizabeth Bathory surely had something similar to this in her dungeon to give her prisoners a good, proper anal skewering.

And then you start thinking of horror porn and what? Doesn’t everyone think fondly of porn when they’re on the edge of the cliff, ready to plummet to death?

While it was an intense ride, it wasn’t as physically painful as I had remembered it to be last year, so I felt confident getting back on the saddle immediately with Corey.

But this time, the ride operator smashed down the bar in such a way that it gripped a bunch of skin on my upper thigh and pinched it tight. I tried to scream at him to get it off me but I’m sure all he heard was “Hey waaaaaaiiiiiiii————-” as our cage whirred away from the station. And every revolution heard me shouting, “You fucccccccckkkkker!!!” and “PLEASE STOPPPPPPPP!” and “I’M PREGGGGGGGGGGnant!!!!!”

The physical pain of Round 2 was so overwhelming that I was unable to notice anything else going on. Bolts could have been popping out. A unicorn could have flown past and crop-dusted me with rainbow piss. All I knew was that the skin on my legs was accordianed underneath that FUCKING bar and my 6-foot-giant brother was slamming into my left side and I could have gone all Hellraiser and melted through the grated side of that cage and I’ll tell you what, that would have been a welcomed relief.

They need to renovate that bitchin’ ride, make it more comfortable. Maybe thrown in some purple velvet seat cushions and instead of that bar, they might want to dig up some mermaids to kneel on the floor and hold the riders’ legs with massaging hands. And I’m talking about the good kind of massaging hands.

I swear to god, for real this time, I’m done with that ride. But like any good abusive relationship, I’ll probably take it back next year, when it bats those beautiful blinking carnival lights at me.

Last year’s Lakemont Park account can be found here.

More photos here.

I think this is my favorite shot from the fair. Somehow, I was able to cram in one frame the essense of an entire fairground. Look at that old lady’s glaucoma shades and classy tattoo! Look at that man simultaneously yanking his Simpsons boxers out of his roiling asshole while reaching for his volunteer firemen radio! And look at that man’s smiling reflection in the mirrored pillar! After this picture was snapped, he stepped out of the mirror, introduced himself as a demon, and raped everyone’s souls. Except mine; it was consenting and is now pregnant with the Bubonic Plague.

I was so blessed to be standing there just in time to capture his look of smug pleasure as he won a decadent Mountain Dew bottle cap. And that lady is seriously cooler than me.

Blake and Deanna caught up with us a few times and stuck around long enough for me to get all paparazzo on them. I can’t help it, they’re my favorite subjects!

Chooch ate some generic brand of Dip n’ Dots, a slushie, cotton candy, and a fried Oreo, which is what people believe he’s cracked out from on a regular day, so imagine when he actually is.

Meanwhile, something fantastico happened to me over at the rickety-ship-with-the-dragon-head ride: I was touched by a carnie. And I ain’t talking ’bout some little brush of calloused, oil-stained palm as he guided the safety bar into my thighs with enough force to mimic a caveman clubbing his dinner. No, it was nothing quite so innocent. As I was limping up the steps to board the ride, he snatched my right arm and put my wrist in a constricting vice-like grip, threatening Indian burn. Here were my thoughts:

1. I was mistaken for the Lolita of the carnies, some broad who fucks her way around the fairground, lying about love and then stealing their AC/DC shirts, scratched Harley Davidson Zippos, and jars of Planters peanuts, and than fled town, and now this here particular carny on the fake Pirate Ship was thinking that he saved the day by recognizing me and “look at the nerve of this dirty whore, showing her face ’round these parts again, though she could show her face on MY parts, if you know what I mean” and now they can have all their shit back and also keep me locked in an oversized carnary cage, watching to see if I become pregnant. Because that’s something I would totally do. In fact, maybe next year.
2. He needed a blood transfusion and was checking the plumpness of my veins.

But what it really was, was that he was just trying to read tattoo. Afterward, he made this sick smirk and goes, in a gruff tenor that would make even Amy Winehouse’s labia curl back in fear (and this is assuming it hasn’t already fallen off), “I don’t know what that means, but it’s cool.” And then when the ride started going, he was standing down there to the side, trying to get everyone to put their arms up, and you better goddamn believe I did as I was told.

And fuck, that ride made me sick too.

I don’t know where Blake and Deanna were for all of that; probably looking at quilts.

I learned later that the reason for Deanna’s blanched visage is that the carnie was ogling her boobs each time their seat would pass him. If Blake is anything like his dad, he patted the old grizzled dude’s back on the way out and offered to rent Deanna out to him. Seriously, that’s what Henry would have done if it were me and him in that situation. After calling me a whore.

One of the first things Corey and I noticed upon arriving at the fair was a delicacy they were very originally touting as “FRIED PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICHES.” Our initial reaction to that was one of, “Uh…ew.” But about an hour later, we were waiting to get pulverized on that shitty yellow ride, and I go, “I wonder if I could ask them to just give me the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, unfried?” and Corey was like, “Probably not, but you could ask” and then after a tour of the farm animals it was all, “I wonder what that would be like, a fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich” and “Maybe we should get one” and “Yes, let’s get one.”

OH I HAVE HAD FRIED ODDITIES BEFORE, MY FRIENDS. I’ve done the Oreos and the candy bars and that sewer rat, but peanut butter and jellies are one of my faves and I was hesitant to potentially tarnish my taste buds with an alien form of the after school special. So Corey and I spent the entire night musing and postulating and there were a lot of “maybe”s and “we should”s before we finally reached that final affirmative decision. And then I had to report the outcome to this very intense meeting of the masterminds to Henry, who was like, “OK, whatever. Get one if you want” like he couldn’t understand why this would be a big deal. But if you saw the shit he enjoyed eating on a regular basis, you’d understand that his palate has long since been cheese-grated.

So during the last hour of the fair, we finally approached the Fried Things wagon, which was very similar to a laboratory on the inside, if laboratories were filled with bubbling and hissing pans of grease instead of chemicals. We were auspicious enough to get the crankiest, wrinkliest, rudest wench in all of Fair Land. She tried to skip over me and take someone else’s order and I raised my hand and said, “Hello, I’d like to order?” I think maybe she knew I kept trying to take pictures of her through the finger-printed, snotted-up glass.

I watched her make it. It was only an Uncrustable, that abomination of the pb&j heritage.

So her little partner boy slides over a Styrofoam bowl with this big, steaming, powdered sugar-covered fried dump that is clearly too hot to eat but I have no patience and start stabbing at it with my plastic fork anyway and the first couple of bites tasted like little else but searing pain on my tongue. After awhile, I got into a groove and even though the tip of my tongue was throbbing as much as my toe, I was still able to discern some of the mingling tastes of the fried batter and melted peanut butter. Some of the jelly parts were still frozen and that kind of killed it for me. I imagine it’s akin to a fratboy having to pull out of his rufied love interest because he hears cop sirens; it was pretty magical up until that point.

And what better way to end the night than to test the laws of physics on the Round Up less than a minute after swallowing the last bite of our fried delicacies? Corey and I were quick to note that we were the only ones who were smiling and talking while waiting for the ride to start. The gentlemen directly across from us stood staunch, their lips in firm, taut lines. “I feel like they’re on here for spiritual cleansing, not to have their insides twisted in the name of fun,” I whispered to Corey and oh, the laughter. Then the ride started and Corey and I proceeded to engage in conversations that most normal people would probably feel more comfortable performing via telephone, not while being twirled around the atmosphere.

“So, was Aneesa really a bitch in real life?” I asked while trying unsuccessively to unsuction my arm from my side long enough to swipe the hair out of my mouth. Corey had mentioned that while on vaca in New Jersey, he ran into Aneesa from The Real World: Chicago on the boardwalk. So we talked about that for awhile, and then revisited the fellows across from us who were still standing straight, emanating little emotion. Glancing to Corey’s left, I noticed that those people weren’t smiling or cheering either. In fact, everyone except for the small girl to my right seemed to be riding in silence, while Corey and I were engaging in relaxed discourse, like we were at the sauna.

That ride lasted about fifty revolutions too many.

When the ride was over and we met back up with Janna, she gasped, “That ride seemed to go on forever!” Which is what  my stomach was saying too, just not in any words you’d understand. “And you and Corey were talking the whole time, it was funny to watch!” I wish I’d have puked on her feet right then, because what a swell way to end a night at the fair.

Instead, we just left.

It was basically a reunion from last year’s trip to the fair, except Deanna joined our caravan and I was happy about that until she yelled at me for not wearing my gimp boot. She can be mean for such a little girl!

Shortly after having our hands kissed with the official “You’re at the Fair Now, Bitch” hand stamp (which was gooey and had the consistency of Pepto-Bismol commingling with ejaculate, and smelled like a vat of burnt rubber and a chemical explosion, thank you Deanna for making me smell it), we adopted our signature “We’re at the fair/amusement park/zoo/anywhere outside of the house” lost locust shuffle. Seriously, at one point I even said, “I feel like we spend 75% of the time just standing around awkwardly in every one’s way” to which Corey attached the very true addendum  “and judging everyone.”

Blake and Deanna quickly went off on their own, those lucky kids. Henry and I might have done that too, if we weren’t saddled with Chooch and a good eight years of burgeoning resentment for each other. So instead, Corey and I ran around riding rides that we knew would give us a hurtin’, while Janna and Henry played good parents and cheered for Chooch, who actually smiles on rides now and doesn’t look like he’s riding public transportation to work.

Meanwhile, I spied the nameless yellow ride of doom that left Corey and me with black and blue Rorsach patterns all over our bodies last year. This ride is so deceptive that I swear they purposely didn’t name it so as not to deter innocent riders. You might remember me crying about this ride last year, but here’s an excerpt of what I wrote:

Corey, Blake and I rode this one ride that looked really tame from the ground, but as soon as it started, centrifugal force (I was good at all the sciences but physics) slammed my fat ass into Corey and from there, we enjoyed the most painful, car-wreck-like ride of the fair. Janna, who was watching from the safety of the comfortable land, said it honestly looked like Corey was going to fall out. It was so painful that I was crying/laughing and then, and I’m not going to lie, a pee drop came out, so not only did I have to fight to stay alive, but I had to also spend the duration of that fucking piece of shit ride trying not to urinate on the entire fair below, like I was spraying the fall harvest or some shit. He got me back on another ride later, as my flesh was practically ribboned on the door of the rattling cage in which we were imprisoned.

After we disembarked, Corey and I adopted a zombied gait (I was essentially using both hands to coax my right leg forward); Blake was all, “WTF is wrong with you guys? That ride was fucking great, I enjoyed myself to the fullest.” BECAUSE HE SAT ALONE AND DID NOT HAVE THE OUTSTANDING OPPORTUNITY TO FEEL THE SENSATION OF MELDING WITH ANOTHER HUMAN BEING.

Since it was just Corey and me riding it this time, we came up with the brilliant solution of sitting separately so no one would have to get squashed. Each car seats four: two in the front, two in the back. I climbed into the back and yanked the safety bar down across my lap. That’s when I realized that there’s a little metal nub which juts down from the middle of the bar, and I presume its function is to keep the riders separated (which in essence only makes for a more punishing cruise through the air). The nub in question came down right between my legs because I didn’t have the foresight to choose a side; I just plopped down right in the middle of the car. Corey, because we share  genes, did the same thing. I panicked, which is what I do on rides, and decided it would behoove me to ask the carny if I was going to die because of this.

As the carny approached to doublecheck the secureness of the safety bars, I thrusted my denim’d pelt toward him and asked, “Is it ok that this nub is between my legs?” while pointing at my crotch with one finger on each hand. And even while I was mid-vag lurch, I was already thinking to myself, “Why the fuck are you simulating porn for this lewd carny?

” If only I had worn my scrolling neon-lighted “INSERT DIRTY PEEN HERE XXX” booty shorts for the occasion.

Now, you can ask me over and over, “Why did you do that?” but my answer will always be, “I am unsure what possessed me to air-hump the carny and his faux Ray-Bans.” However, after taking in my spread thighs, he laughed and said, “It ain’t gonna hurt you, miss.”

AT LEAST HE DIDN’T CALL ME MA’AM.

Why I felt reassured at all is beyond me because hello, he’s a fucking carny and I’m pretty sure they’re required to fail a lie detector test before getting hired. Because as soon, and I mean AS SOON as that fucking piece of shit ride took flight, I was whipped to the right but the nub was preventing my left leg from following. I started screaming, “I’M BEING WISHBONED! STOP THE RIDE! YOU LIED, THIS HURTS!” but his answer to me was to pull a lever and let the oscillating begin.

The only way for my position on that ride to look natural was to stick my feet in some stirrups and shove a speculum up my vagina.

The comfort level probably would have been about the same. Except a pelvic exam is over way sooner than that cunty no-named yellow death trap, which I am now dubbing Aerial Pelvic Prod.

 When the ride came to a stop, the lecherous carny came around to release us from the yellow jaws. To me he asks (with a scandalous smile), “See, it didn’t hurt you, did it?

” I was about to argue that it did, but instead I laughed nervously and said, “No, you were right” because I really wasn’t trying to get dragged back to his shanty so he could perform some mystical vaginal massage on me, by which I mean rape. And everyone knows that carny rape only leads to triplets who heirs to the knife throwing booth and stink naturally of grease, Skoal and fried onions.

 Like this hottie!

Apparently, Bingo is why we were ditched by Blake and Deanna. Their expressions speak a thousand words.

Stuff that hot sausage in your hot sausage hole, Henry you dumb douchebarrel. I will say that Henry was not as pissy as he was last year. His ovarian cysts must not have been bursting that day. Maybe also because my aunt Sharon financed our fair field trip and he didn’t have to pick food scraps out of the clown-faced garbage cans.

Corey was so excited to win at this game. We’ll pretend like he was playing against seasoned veterans of the fairground water gun sport, and not, you know, my three-year-old son. Corey’s favorite part was totally when he tried to take his stuffed animal (which I hope is displayed proudly in his dorm room) off the bleached headed game master, who proceeded to tease Corey by raising it out of his reach. He only did that TEN TIMES so it didn’t get old or anything.

[There’s one more part to come. I’m trying not to inundate the Internet with a thousand pictures all at once. Also, I’m too lazy to write it all at once.]

Before I regale you with the story of our (not so) debaucherous trip to the Westmoreland County Fair last Wednesday, I feel that it’s prudent to backpedal and preface that yarn with another tale that is absolutely wrought with horror and gore.

It all happened in the wee hours of Sunday, August 23rd, 2009. My man-steed and I had gone a record of three hours without bickering and decided to call it a night while we were ahead. Ascending the stairs in tandem, Henry did the most unthinkable, unspeakable act of betrayal: HE BROKE MY TOE. I screamed louder than Paul Sheldon.

Let me try and  recreate the “accident” for you: As I was lifting my fragile, tender right foot off the step, Henry’s big fat ogre foot came thundering down from the red-skied heavens and plowed into the step with timing so perfect he managed to clip my delicate, wonderous pinky toe. Unable to stop the momentum, my foot continued its flight to the next step, which turned my pinky into the Stretch Armstrong for podophiliacs.

I’m not sure if your Bible ever told you this, but toes for some reason are not molded from Silly Putty and are not meant to be pulled taut like taffy.

Probably you think my first reaction was to decorate the atmosphere with the gyrating notes of my blood-curling scream and bulge my eyes out a la Loony Tunes. That was secondary. What happened first was that my body petrified into solid shock (I think a crumb or two of my person even fell off) and I locked eyes with Henry for what seemed like three entire Degrassi episodes as I witnessed the worst sound ever (on par with Jessica Simpson’s country effort).

Try to remember that time you were in Milwaukee, visiting your friend Jeffrey Dahmer, that dapper cannibalistic prince. If your memory is nimble, you’ll surely remember sitting on his plaid La-Z-Boy watching the Wheel of Fortune, while he was busy in the kitchen doing prep work for the dinner party you were co-hosting later that night. And how could you forget when you heard the snap, crackle pop of what you assumed at the time was Jeffie cracking crab legs but later learned it was actually the soundtrack orchestrated only from the cleaving  of cartilage and breaking of bones that can and will occur when yanking off human toes with a nutcracker? Is it all coming back to you now? Are you fingering the zipper-like scar left on your asscheek, a treasured curio on your flesh from when Jeffrey tried to make an after dinner Andes Candy out of a sheath of your epidermis?  Well, stop that and go back to thinking of the sound of that dead body being mutilated on the cutting board.

Because that’s the sound my toe made.

I remained paralyzed on the steps for a half hour, wincing and cowering like an abused mutt each time Henry attempted to hook his arms under my pits and drag me up to bed (he taffied my toe, remember). And then I proceeded to act like a cripple for a fortnight (I’m lying; I don’t even know what a fortnight is. I’m dumbzzzz), refusing to leave the house and hopping to and fro on my left leg.

And now you are fully informed and brought to date.  Fairwell  now.

It was 4pm on Wednesday and we were getting ready to depart for the fair. Nothing aside from an air cast had even so much as grazed my right foot since The Accident, and I was still limping, but nothing was going to stop me from stuffing my feet into regular street shoes. And of course I chose my sparkly silver Converse with the narrow toe, not “sneakers” like Janna suggested right before returning her attention to her collection of vintage After School Specials.

That actually said “nipples.” Seriously, deep fried nipples are way better than you’d think, if you can get past the fact that the one you’re eating could be the leftover areola of a murdered stripper. Same texture as cheese curds.

After completing my mono-ped voyage down the steps, I collapsed into a sniveling heap at the bottom. “I can’t go!” I wailed. “It hurts too much to wallllllk!!!”

And then this scintillating exchange occurred:

Henry: “Wear the air cast.”

Me, with arm slung across forehead: “NO THAT’S SO DUMB!”

Henry: “Well, at least you’ll be able to walk.”

Me: “I would rather be in pain.”

Henry: “You worry too much about how you’re going to look! No one is going to care if you’re wearing a boot on your foot. When I’m out and I see someone in a cast or something, I don’t think it’s funny or anything like that.”

Me,considering this and then upchucking a laugh that stirred Satan from his afternoon Poker tourny with Hitler, Judas and Sarah Palin (she has a visitor’s pass):  “Oh. Well, I do.”

Henry, throwing his hands up in defeat: “WELL THEN YOU DESERVE IT.”

In the end, I wore my Converse and spent the evening hobbling around the fairgrounds in excruciating pain and perpetually chanting “Ow, ow” because god forbid some beer tee-sporting hick with a prison tattoo might think I had a club foot.

Now I’m tired of typing so ciao for now.