Not Always Good at the County Fair

Thanks for the guest post by Ruby Todd

The county fair is place that suffuses every adult with memories and nostalgia for childhood. The old ferris wheel where you took your first love, the carnival booths and merry go rounds and the wisps of cotton candy melting in your mouth. For me, however, the county fair is a place of nightmares and melancholy. This is where my first girlfriend dumped me, and I have never recovered, even after countless therapy sessions. In any case, the wife and children do not know this, and I must suck it up for their sake. I should not bias them against the horribly depressing atmosphere that is a county fair, because my experience is not homogeneous.

I take the kids across the fair and back, and they love it. All the while I am agonizing, remembering the time when she turned to me with that awkward look, that countenance that comes before the deliverance of bad news. Or so I thought, as she dumped me right then and there, and at the same time I missed one of the greatest finishes in football history. Thankfully this time around I can just DVR all my programs and when I get home I'm going to sit on the couch and watch directtv.