i only wear white when it rains

As we usher in the Autumn season, I welcome the many changes it brings. The temperature drops from a crisp 95 to 93 degrees, and the amount of dirt I blow out of my nose increases threefold.

Anyone with children knows I am, of course, referring to the weekly Fall “Festibals” (my in-speech-therapy-daughter also told me she prefers the other “virgin” of Miley Cyrus’ Party in the USA song. I was so shocked to hear the words virgin and Miley Cyrus uttered in the same sentence, I didn’t even bother to correct her).

What is it about these church carnivals that has us flocking to dirt fields year after year to pay toothless sex offenders to lift and strap our small children into rusted contraptions that are about to implode any second without ever even stopping to remove the unfiltered cigarettes from their mouths? The place where despite the 10:1 odds in favor of e-coli contamination, we still fork over $8 (or two weeks alimony) for a bag of kettle corn that at the very least makes you wonder what sort of flesh-eating parasites are swimming around at the bottom of that smoking, copper toilet bowl.

It’s at these fairs that we are reminded the devil of all temptation is not a naked Vegas hooker holding a winning lottery ticket and the cure for cancer at your bachelor party. It’s funnel cake. Wafting past the mounds of dirt blocking my nostrils like fried Oreos guarantee to do to my arteries. Begging me to disregard the imminent asstastrophe should I give in to this greasy compulsion. I’m pretty sure the inventor of Elmer’s glue did nothing more than patent what is left on your fingers once you’ve licked off the mixture of powdered sugar, recycled grease and saliva after eating a funnel cake the size of a hubcap.

So swept up in the nostalgia of it all, we never even stop to consider the same lard that’s frying your french fries and funnel cake is also used for anything from corndogs to chicken nuggets to lubing the spokes on the Tilt a Hurl. By no means am I suggesting I get nauseated from spinning around in circles at 60 mph until the carnie finishes his cigarette or someone vomits into the air splashing passersby with chunks of cotton candy and turkey leg. What makes me queasy when I am forced to board this twirling tuna can due to some bullshit height requirement is that all those corroded cars smell just like the urine-soaked floors of the Port Authority bathroom. And the rusty stench on your fingers after you chose clutching the metal Tilt a Hurl’s wheel over a head injury? It requires at least 10 Purell wipes and three hand washes to remove. Minimum.

Fond childhood memories of our junior high boyfriend winning us a Menudo poster at the carnival must be what lures us in to play these games over and over again, spending the equivalent of a pair of Stuart Weitzman wedges on trying to win a giant stuffed Saint Bernard carrying enough scabies in his barrel to infest the Swiss Alps.

This afternoon, my 6-year-old tried to talk me into playing a $5-per-player game that a moustached, yellow-toothed (singular), Wrangler-sporting child molester promised would yield a “winner every time.” Anyone who has ever had a neuron synapse understands that the giant Scooby Doo toy hanging behind this convict is among the “Choice” prizes, which means you either have to beat 30 people playing at one time, or you have to trade up the gazillion erasers and Tootsie Rolls you just won for being a big loser. I could only imagine the disappointment on my little girl’s face when and if she did finally pop that balloon, and the ex-con proceeded to reach past Scooby to get the basket of Dum Dums for her to choose from. So I convinced her that we needed to leave. It was getting late. But most importantly, I had to pee. And unless I’m 23, drunk and tailgating, there is no way I’m using a Port a Potty. As we walked to the car, I couldn’t help but notice the disappointment on her face. My bladder ignored this. Driving toward Starbucks I glanced in my rearview mirror and spotted some tears.

“Honey, come on. It’s just a toy. A toy that costs the equivalent of a mortgage payment to win. But just a toy.”

Now the waterworks started. Bringing on the urgency to pee even more.

“It’s not just a toy, ” she protested. “It’s Scooby Doo. And. I. Love. That. Show.”

Call me a sucker. Or just someone who’s very very bad at being poor. But I turned my car around and headed back into that trench to spend the remainder of my alimony on trying to win a Scooby Doo toy that is big enough to have collapsed the Chilean mines.

Now, Scooby Dirty Doo is sleeping soundly next to his little stalker while I google how to remove bed bugs, scabies and ringworm from her sheets.