Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

The Inuit have 50 names for snow cones.

Last year, a nice woman told me she had attended the State Fair on each of its 12-day run. She planned on doing the same thing this year. She lives closer to the fairgrounds than I do. A trip to the State Fair eats up an entire day for me and part of the next. The sounds of the fair become my three-day earworm. I’ve engaged in purposeful enterprises at the State Fair. I’ve spun stories, answered questions about birds, given talks about nature, manned booths, given away tchotchkes, dodged a record number of kids wielding cotton candy, stood in a line longer than the Great Wall of China to buy chocolate-covered potato chips for my mother-in-law, and had a scarecrow named after me at the Horticulture Building. Few resumes include that last bit.

I considered telling the woman she should take a day off from the State Fair. It’d get by without her. The yellowjackets will still go. Those hangry wasps attend every year. I’ve taken several years off, and the State Fair hasn’t missed a beat. I reined in my impulse to suggest that to her because I didn’t want to pour water on her passionately positive fire. She enjoys going. She should go. Not everything is for everybody. That’s why we have everything.

The drive to the State Fair can be a gauntlet of roadwork, speed and either idiotic or moronic other drivers — I’m never sure which one is which.

Remember, there is a county fair lurking nearby. Put on your “They said there’d be food” T-shirt and make haste to the local fair. It’s a whiz-bang affair and a lovely way to move through a few days when snow is unlikely to be in the five-day forecast.

What do I do at a fair? I visit with folks, people-watch and pretend to be a pet rock. I duct-tape an ear of corn to the wall and call it crop art. No ribbon for me. I throw a ping-pong ball at a concrete block, hoping to knock it down and win a stuffed three-legged spider, and I make balloon animals — worms, snakes and eels.

Many fairgoers mind their phone business.

People don’t go to the fair for the peace and quiet. I correspond with someone who has 21 siblings. Her parents might have visited the fair for the peace and quiet, but no one else has.

A friend made a face at what he determined was hard-listening music. “I can’t believe I put new batteries in my hearing aids for this. I can’t even hear what I’m saying when I talk to myself,” he grumped.

That’s why he didn’t win Miss Congeniality in the demolition derby. I reminded him that there are two kinds of music. The music he likes and the music someone else likes. If we all liked the same thing, wherever we are would be overcrowded. I told him to check out the free stage. It offers a wide variety of the best music at the fair.

He didn’t hear me. He’d pocketed his hearing aids and headed off to watch the “Outrun an Angry Rottweiler” competition.

We talk to fair friends, but we mustn’t tarry. We have eating to do. It’s the Tunnel of Love Handles. We speak softly and eat something deep-fried on a stick. It’s impossible to ignore fair food.

Wherever we go, we’re downwind from enticing food. If you want to impress others with your amazing willpower, eat a delicious corn dog every 10,000 steps.

I’d determined to pop an antacid and watch other people eat, but just when I thought no vegetable would ever call me, onion rings. And when onion rings, I answer. People eat fair food while waiting in line to buy more fair food. What if we are what we eat? Forget I brought that up. Please beware of the cotton candy with polyester in it.

When we can’t find a worthy diversion, the fair comes to the rescue like a public restroom.

It’s too hot. It’s too humid. It’s too noisy. It’s too expensive. It’s too crowded. It’s the county fair. It’s almost too perfect.

But don’t take any wooden pickles.

Al Batt’s columns appear in the Tribune every Wednesday.