All's Fair

"And I've walked these streets, in the mad house asylum they can be, where the wild eyed misfit prophet on a traffic island stopped and he raved of saving me." Natalie Merchant from "Carnival"

After forcing me to take my daily mellow makers I heard the nurse bitching to the muscle head orderly that she wanted to find a new job. The nerve of some people. I count on her and she just wants to find some other lunatic to torture. Women, can't live with them, no reason to live without them. But I know you won't leave me and the Asylum, it's only a metaphor after all. But her desire to find new employment got me thinking...

Yesterday I was bamboozled. My sometimes irritating sister wanted me to attend a job fair with her in the nearby metropolis that is Rock Hill. Seeing that employment in the Slow is as hard to come by as a natural D-cup in Los Angeles I decided to tag along, overly padded resume in hand, eager to find that which was eluding me. And I found out a few things. Maybe I'm not meant to get work here. And as far as fairs go, job fairs suck.

First of all there wasn't a corn dog stand to be found. No food on a stick at all, no food period. I don't know about you but one the main reasons that I attend fairs is the chow. Where else can you get cheese, corn dogs, beef of various spice, and all sorts of other wonders on a stick? Not to mention funnel cake. If you can't get funnel cake you shouldn't be able to call it a fair. That's all I'm saying.

Another good thing about the fair is the shopping. It is only at fairs that you find new wonder cleaners, inexpensive white trash vacations, and unique foot wear. Think I found any of those things at the so-called Job Fair? No. No, I did not. Instead of being pestered by an eager salesman trying to book me on a houseboat trip that would essentially make me a prisoner with my travel companions, I got hounded by an Army Reserve recruiter who dared to question my patriotism because I mentioned something about the guy signing his check being a high functioning retarded, and not that highly functioning. That pissed the guy off.

After losing the little green Army man near the Tilt-A-Whirl, wait, there was Tilt-A-Whirl either. That fair officially sucked. No Ferris wheel, no Gravitron, no Merry Go Round, I did think that I saw a fun house mirror but it turned out I was just fat. Maybe it was a good thing that I couldn't get corn dogs and funnel cake after all. So with no overly priced amusements to raise my thrill level I talked to a guy from Muzak about a career in elevator music. If hired I will become a saboteur, switching the placid tones of John Tesh with the rockin' sounds of Jon Bon Jovi. Cause I'm a cowboy.

Feeling dejected with no food, no rides, and no shopping I thought of the one thing that always brings me joy, you, my readers. I decided that it would be awesome to win you all a stuffed animal because I'm something of an idiot savant at that soft ball in the milk jar game. If only I could find the midway. Finding a guy who looked like he might work there I ask where I might find the rigged games. You wanna guess what he told me? That's right, no midway. My anger level was higher than Cheech and Chong so I ask the guy "If there's no rides and no midway, what's with all the carney's?" I point to any number of cro-magnons plodding about in stained T-shirts and faded, dirty jeans. He looks me right in the eye, like I'm some kind of moron, and he says "This is a job fair in South Carolina. Who did you expect to see walking around?" He made a good point. I left the fair knowing that I wasn't going to the State Fair, not even if I got dragged there.

Got a job for me? What's your favorite part of the fair?

Dixie Cup of Love: P.T. Barnum, cause I never heard of a Job Circus.