Day 188 - Slap a Cow on the Butt

Date: July 13th, 2010

I had another reminder of why I'm on this project when I headed out to the Eaton County Fair on Tuesday.  When I left work, I was insanely tired, and contemplated quite seriously just going back to my place in Lansing, laying down and taking a long nap.  Then I remembered that my lack of air conditioning made living there similar to sitting in a sauna at the center of the freaking sun.  So I yawned my way to a gas station, grabbed some caffeine and thought "well, it probably won't be a great afternoon, but I'll go anyway".

I guess my biggest concern was that I wouldn't actually be doing anything all that new or exciting.  I mean, I've been to the circus before.  I've ridden on kiddie rides and lost money to prize vendors.  I couldn't think of anything that a County Fair would have that I hadn't experienced, but since I technically hadn't been to a County Fair, I could count it anyway.  I was anticipating writing an entry about how I'd done it all before in different venues.

See?  I've walked on grass before.  This is gonna be so boring.

When I got there, I took a lap to see what I was dealing with, but nothing initially popped out at me.  Though, I did start noticing little things.  County Fairs and NASCAR races have a lot in common in terms of their respective audiences, for example.  After a brief lap, I noticed Bingo! with a money prize.  Feeling slightly out of place, I walked into a large warehouse where I was less than half the age of any of the other people there.  Oh who am I kidding?  These are my people!  A little full contact Bingo!, some good, old fashioned, postage-stamp, full-blackout, single line action?  That's where its at.  The adrenaline, the low groan of the ball-churning machine as it spits out our collective fate.  Oh rapturous day!  A Bingo!  I'll never have to work again!  Peace out, Suckas.  Wait.  What's the prize?  Two dollars?  What the hell can I get with two dollars?

Oh goody.

After the rush/letdown that was Bingo!, I realized that there was a lot more to the County Fair than I previously thought.  Granted I realized that because I could smell farm animals in the Bingo! room, which meant either that there was a clean-up needed on aisle one or that there was a farm animal contest of some kind near by.  I decided to do a little more exploring and found a whole area of the fair that I'd previously missed.  The, guess what, farm animal area.  The various local 4-H clubs and kids' clubs had brought their prize animals for display at the fair.

I spent a few minutes walking around and looking at the best specimens of chickens, sheep, cows and pigs that Eaton County had to offer and I was deeply impressed.  I had no idea that some of the farm animals looked like that up close.  In particular, I was stunned by the chickens.

Look at the subtle variation in the feathers.

I bet that what makes it so delicious.

Of course, there wasn't much I could actually do with the farm animals, though I considered asking if I could sheer a sheep.  I decided against it when I realized all the sheep there were prized animals for display and that I'd be asking to run a razor over their skin.  I saw no possible way that could've gone badly, but moved on to the cow area anyway.  Holy mother of milk, cows are so much bigger than I thought they were.  As I walked through, I was in awe at the sheer size of them.  I suppose I knew they were big already, but I never stopped and thought about it.  I looked from stall to stall and started seeing seven and eight year olds walking calves and small cows to various stalls so I tried to get out of the way.

As I stood off to the side, I heard a very sweet, high pitched voice say "excuse me".  Assuming I was in the way, I stepped farther off to the side.  I noticed that her cow seemed to be pulling back a bit, instead of following in the same docile manner as the others before it.  I smiled at her and gave a slight nod in a silent attempt to say "sorry, clearly I don't know thing one about County Fairs and I didn't mean to be in your way".  Before I could process the fact that I had to silently admit naivete to an eight-year-old, she had a follow-up question.  "Can you please smack him on the butt?".  Now, luckily for me, I'd taken a logic class in college because I was able to deduce that she wanted me to help her make the cow move by observing the situation, processing the implications of it for both her and me and then acting accordingly.

Who the heck am I kidding?  I just took direction from an eight-year-old.  Sometimes you just gotta cop to people knowing more than you about a situation.  So I took a little half swing and smacked it on the butt.  It gave a skip and lurched forward toward the pen she was leading it to and I turned just in time to see a disapproving sideways glance from the cow in the stall nearby.

Stop judging me!

It seemed like as good a time as any to get out of the farm animal area.  I wanted to leave before my entire world view got rocked by the 4-H club.  There was still time, you see, to escape with my beliefs about the nature of farms, farm animals and meat in tact.  I needed to believe that pigs are lazy, sheep are born followers, cows are adorable (and not judgmental like I found out) and chickens are yummy.  I don't know that I could've handled the breakdown of one more farm animal stereotype.

And when the hell did goats get sly?

I walked back over to the main fair area where the foodsnacks, games and grandstand were located, in hopes of finding a few more interesting experiences.  On my way into town, I'd stopped at a quilt shop where the owner recommended I try an elephant ear.  I expressed confusion.  "I didn't realize it was legal to import big game meat from Africa."  Her smile was pitying and sweet, but her eyes said "wow, you are a powerful kind of stupid."  Despite my reservations about the legality of their importation, I decided to try one when I got to the fair.

Oh, now I get it.  They aren't actually made of elephant.

Elephant ears are this amazing mix of donut, pizza and sugar.  Utterly unnecessary, but brilliantly delicious sugar.  I sat down across from a happy-looking family who seemed a bit concerned when I whipped out a camera to take a picture of the elephant ear before digging in.  I smiled wanly and told them I'd never had one before.  The father's eyes got big as though he'd never seen someone so terribly deprived before.  When I took my first bite, I understood the look.  It was decadent.  Seriously, it was a pizza made of donut dough and sugar.  

Though, it wasn't the most ridiculous thing I ate that day.  I wanted the full County Fair experience.  What better way to get that than to eat one of several types of deep-friend vegetables?  Deep-fried zucchini?  Boring.  Jalapeno poppers?  Been there, ran screaming from that.  Onion rings and deep-fried mushrooms?  Too traditional.  Hmm... what about deep-friend cauliflower?  Too much!  Now, what kind of comfortable middle-ground could I find?

Ahh, deep-fried asparagus.  Just the right level of absurdity.

Just before my culinary adventures, I had headed over to the grandstand ticket booth where I saw the lineup for the week posted on the wall.  Playing tonight on the grandstand?  Figure 8.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to buy a grandstand ticket so I walked up to the window, smiled, put on my polite-voice and asked what kind of music this "Figure 8" group played.  The guy in the booth smiled, clearly suppressing a laugh, and said "you're a city girl, aren't ya?".  I nodded.  Apparently "Figure 8" is a type of demolition derby where derby cars drive in a figure eight.  Needless to say, I immediately bought a ticket.

Up on the grandstand, I had an amazing time.  I know that country folks get teased for liking things like demolition derby and whatnot, but I understood the allure as soon as I got there.  We could smell the exhaust, hear the crunch of the cars, see licks of flame curl up from under the hood.  It was what I wish car racing could always be.  They hit each other on every pass and losing meant the car stopped working.  First to fifteen laps won the race and there wasn't a single heat that every car survived.  It was fantastic.

Glory!

So that was my trip to the County Fair.  It was a-ma-zing.  I was struck by the fact that I ended up doing about eight new things that afternoon when I initially hesitated to go because I thought it wouldn't be anything new at all.  I played Bingo! for money, ate an elephant ear, saw a demolition derby, saw prize farm animals, ate deep-fried asparagus, and slapped a cow on the butt.  It was a good day.