My Fair Lady!!

Ain't it a hoot to go to the Fall Fair? Hello its the parade of Canada's Most Wanted. Its the absolute best people watching show of the year. Its the Creme de la Creme of the scary -- the tattooed, the nose ringed, the Hells Angels, the pot heads, the stalkers, the ladies of the night, and us! Its all of the weirdest folks that you ever want to see in a clump.

What amazes me the most is the folks who arrive, courtesy of Para Transport, in motorized wheel chairs sailing through the crowds like slalom skiers with one hand clutching the joy stick and the other the pogo dog. I had one chick, I shouldn't say chick -- looked like she escaped from my ex mother-in-law's apple doll collection -- throw the candy apple red scooter into reverse, back into my knee caps, slam it back into forward and never acknowledge my screams at all.

The folks are as thick as black flies and you do want to swat a few, often. Especially the ones doing the thirty yard dash to the next ride, that whack your shoulder so hard, you're wiping Diet Pepsi off your glasses. And what do they say, oops, sorry, ha ha !!! You would think they were giving away free million dollar bills. Funny how you see dispensers of foam sanitizer all over the place except at the Fair. How come? Can you just imagine what a swab of the handles on those rides would come up with -- enough crap to kill an army.

But you don't want to miss it!! Yes, I hear everyone lament about the good old days. You remember the 70s -- the days when you went primarily to see the buildings and our future -- it was Halloween night for the adults. You crawled home loaded with plastic bags full of promotional crap with key chains, bottle openers, pens, car wax, to dog shampoo. And if you were really lucky, a Canadian maple leaf lapel pin courtesy of our smiling flamboyant man of the hour Pierre Elliott Trudeau from the Federal Government booth. You know -- the one with the Mountie in cardboard. No doubt you didn't see it because probably there was a family of Chinese all huddled around it while the daughter is taking a picture to send back home to say "we've arrived."

Pre recycling and shredder, you had flyers galore coming out your ying yang in case you wanted to build a new shed, kitchen, or outhouse . You had test ridden the products of the future like lazy boy chairs, the vibrating bed, and had drunk enough bottled water and health juice samples to overflow the urinal. Your dogs were barking from walking the miles and miles of vendors who not only offered you everything including their first born to stop, but seemed to have rights to a balloon factory and paper hats.

It was a marketing frenzy, a taste tester's paradise, a hoarder's eureka, and least but not least, a kid's worst nightmare. What kid wanted to stand hour on hour, balancing from foot to foot staring at a sea of zippers and belt buckles, while Mom and Dad got railroaded into buying a magic mixer. That thing promised to do anything from whip up a cake to cleaning grandma's choppers from some never to see again snake charmer.

Now that E Bay, Kijiji and Home Club Shopping Club have given the fall fairs a kick in the cornflakes, it still hasn't taken away the romance and magic that those yellow light bulbs can produce. Even if we dug up Marilyn Munroe today she would look heavenly by the light of the silvery moon and the midway lights. Couples that you could drive an eighteen wheeler between on the couch ordinarily are walking the midway hand in hand reminiscing about the wearing of the heart -- the necklace with the boyfriend's name engraved on it. On the spot engraving of the lover of your life was a big business -- may have been scratched off by the next weekend, but you were blinded by the engraved bling, bling of the romantics.

But come on -- the high volume carnie music is still pumping, the smell of diesel or whatever drives those rides is as familiar as Old Spice for Men. The screams from the wanna be scared out of your pants scary ride crowd remains, the high prices for food that would kill your dog have stayed but most of all there is still the Joy of just walking around and around the midway like trained hampsters on a wheel wonderful. I'm going back again today -- wouldn't miss it!!!