Step right up, folks...

There was a carnival in town this week and Hubby and I got a sitter and took the girls over last night (the baby can not keep his eyes open a minute past 7:00 hence his absence from nighttime family outings). Being there, the smell of cotton candy in the air, reminded me of my own childhood experiences at the Westchester County Fair. Sing along everyone. "Shows and attractions! Non-stop-action! Shows, animals, fireworks too! It's about the most fun thing you can do!" No? Well, I guess just my sister and I were fortunate enough to be taken to Yonkers Raceway on a summer Saturday returning home with our Michael Jackson painter's caps and aviator sunglasses as souvenirs. So in the carny spirit this Friday...

The Top 5 Random Things I love About Carnivals

5. Of course the rides rock at a carnival, but what I find so fascinating is nowhere else on earth, other than a New York City subway car circa 1979, can you find that levels of airbrushed art. I love how the walls and cars of these attractions are always spray painted with vaguely inappropriate things - women with their boobs practically flying out of their tops so great is the centrifugal force of the Alpine Sled or really creepy looking devil faces on the haunted house - even though this is supposed to be a family environment. And who exactly does this for a living? Reformed graffiti artists?

4. The games are, as I experienced last night, a parent's worst nightmare and a total money-suck. Two bucks for my kid to throw one dart? Granted, she did pop the balloon on the first try, but then I was stuck with, yet another, crappy stuffed animal to shove under her bed. Annoying as an adult but awesome as a kid. Don't you remember being super-psyched when your dad won you the extra large panda bear playing the ring toss? Sure you had no idea it cost him forty-five bucks to do so and then he had to do it again to get one for your sister, because you were too busy trying to walk normally dragging this behemoth back to the car. Inevitably your beloved bear would spring a leak while you and your sister were beating the bejeezus out of each other with your prizes leaving a trail of minuscule Styrofoam balls for your mother to clean up for the rest of the summer. I am scared to think about where these cheap toys come from and what might actually be inside them if we can't keep lead paint out of Toys R Us for crying out loud.

3. Speaking of games, what game is more fun than the water gun/balloon pop race? I remember having palpitations waiting for the starting bell to go off, then correcting and over-correcting trying to get that damn stream of water into the (creepy) clown's mouth once the too loud bell did ring. As a parent, I wondered last night how dirty that water must be and I threw up in my mouth a little.

2. The best souvenirs ever from a fair, other then the aforementioned Chinese-import, death-bears, are glow-in-the-dark necklaces. Of course, they were the height of eighties cool being neon colored, but they also allowed you to goof off and get even more riled up in the dark of your room once you were in bed if you were lucky enough to share with a sibling (I was). My mother in-law recently gave the girls a few and it was a long, long night.

1. OK, you knew it was coming. My number one is, of course, food related. The number one, best thing about a fair is fried dough. Funnel cakes, zeppoles, whatever your preference, fry it up, pour some powdered sugar on it and I sound like Homer Simpson. Must I? Oh,OK..."Mmmmm. Donuts." I remember going to a fair gigantically pregnant with one of my kids and eating so many zeppole I looked like Al Pacino in Scarface when I was done. I restrained myself last night though. There were children present.

So if you see a sign for a local fair or carnival, why not take a trip down memory lane and swing by? Even if you don't have kids. Enjoy it now because soon it'll be you screaming, "These bottle are rigged!", then muttering, "Yeah...I'll take another three balls. How many do I need to knock down for the panda?"
Happy Friday!