Spaghetti-shaped ice cream. Kettle Korn on a stick. Deep-fried bananas. Australian fries.
See? The fair doesn’t have to be a budget buster. Not all the time.
Mmm, sea creature cake.
Wanna know what else is going on at the fair this year? Here are a few snippets:
Hamburgers dressed like children. It’s sick, really. Sick and wrong.
Turkey legs – a vast quantity of them. When you’re at the fair, it seems every other person who walks by is gnawing on one of these babies. It’s no surprise, then, that some folks start to suffer from…
Tryptophan-induced drowsiness.
Also, tryptophan-induced napping. Not that anyone would complain about such a thing. It’s just a plain and simple fact of turkey leg consumption.
Here’s an example of something I get to practice each year at the fair: Agoraphobia suppression.
You guys might not believe this, but actually, I’m a pretty shy and cautious person. I’m a hermit by nature. Going to the fair and throwing myself into the middle of a crowd helps. I like to call it the Band Aid approach. Try it: Apply a Band Aid to a tender area – the underside of your forearm, for example – and then rip it off, all the while smiling like an idiot.
See? Not so bad, is it?
Something else happening each and every year at the Tulsa State Fair: Parents getting roped into riding kiddie rides that spin 7,200 degrees about a central point and then pretending that they are not nauseated or afraid of the scary, clown-like decor that surrounds them – or, rather, invades their very being.
Anyone ever wonder how much trash is generated by the Tulsa State Fair? Me, too. If anything finds a way to figure this out, post it on your blog. Because you’ll be famous for a day or so.
Look! It’s the annual, high-flying, homemade turkey leg balloon! This is one of my favorite fair attractions. I seek it out each year. It makes me giggle.
Want a closer look?
Perfect-o, right? The high-flying, handmade turkey leg balloon is glorious to my soul.
Now, check this out:
Can’t we all identify with what this trailer has to say? I mean, that’s exactly what I would have liked to have said when I was full of Boulevard beer all those times I had to elbow my way through those crowded bars in LA to reach the stage to perform my encore.
I’m so glad someone out there understands me.
Again, feeling very understood at this moment. Who doesn’t love honey, and lots of it?
Who doesn’t love chocolate covered pickles, and lots of them?
Didn’t quite work the same way the second time I said it, did it? Oh, well. Better luck next time.
Here’s the Made in Oklahoma exhibit. Thanks to new digs and some extra space, MIO seems to be larger and more sprawling this year.
Something else going on at the fair this year: The threat and sometimes reality of undesirable fair weather.
Bring a sweater, a jacket and an umbrella along to the fairgrounds with you this year, folks. Things could get drizzly.
And who could forget that most visible aspect of the Tulsa State Fair: The rides.
One time, at summer camp, I rode one of those spinny rides with the swings, as pictured above.
As some of you already know, difficulty with spinny rides runs in the family, so it wasn’t long into the ride before I puked – that wasn’t the unexpected part. What I didn’t anticipate was that, by some weird and unforgiving law of physics, after the vomit exited my face, it sort of froze in the air such that nearly every kid on the ride with me that day got thwacked in the face by a floating cloud of my evicted and sundry stomach contents.
After that it was, needless to say, time to go home. The end.
The worst part? My parents made me go back again the very next day. And you wonder why I have agoraphobia.
Another thing that can be found at the Tulsa State Fair: Happy people.
Also, sad people.
Not to mention, angry people.
Don’t mind them. Have fun at the fair this year anyway.
P.S. – I’m sorry I said vomit. If you need your space, I understand.
2 Comments to Found at the Tulsa State Fair
Cindy
On October 6, 2009 at 10:31 pm
My father owns the Strawberry Newberg and the Choc Dipped Pickles (that's actually him behind the curtain in the pickle pic!).
He will be SO utterly thrilled to hear I saw his stuff on the internet twice in one week! Hehe!
Stephanie
On October 7, 2009 at 4:40 am
When I was a kid, maybe 8 or 9 years old, while at the fair one night with my father and step-sisters, I fell against the canvas walls of a fun house after traversing the moving stairs and slid under the structure. No one saw me fall and no one knew where I was when I wound up under the fun house laying on pipes and pavement. Adults were relieved to find me after a few minutes and I was grateful to get out of that dark and dirty place. No permanent injuries, but now avoid walk-through fun houses. Also, it was in the day before lawsuits for such a thing.