Make This A Fair To Remember

Thu., Aug. 24, 2000

By Paul Turner srpaulturner@gmail.com

Here’s what not to do at a fair.

1. Grab handfuls of ribbon-winning produce and yell “Food fight!”

2. Talk about how you’re too cool to be at such a corny event.

3. Rush little kids who are enjoying the animals.

4. Believe that one of the miracle home and garden products being demonstrated could change your life.

5. Eat two pounds of junk food right before riding the regurgitator.

6. Say “But this isn’t tobacco I’m smoking.”

7. Upset small children with a graphic report on rabbits as meat.

8. Check out members of the opposite sex with all the subtlety of a recently paroled convict.

9. Attend the fair with a buxom woman squeezed into a thimble-sized tank top and then spend all night glaring at strangers and yelling, “What’re you lookin’ at?”

10. Act like you’ve never encountered that smell before.

* Overheard at day care: Three-year-old Cameron tattled to the woman in charge that 2-year-old Dakotah was playing with her “quack-u-lator.”

* The best thing about our proximity to Canada: “The people. The mountains. The lakes. And the hot springs.” — Eric Dubes

* One local woman wonders: Do other husbands verbally threaten weeds while helping out in the garden?

* Least upscale lake place: June Potter thinks it might be the cabin/shack she and husband Frank built on Bottle Bay at Lake Pend Oreille years ago. It’s made of rough lumber and salvage materials. But the family has grown to love it.

* Bob Kirlin’s latest list:

Oregon: Baja Washington

Pullman: Baja Spokane

Dishman: Baja Millwood

Lewis & Clark: Baja North Central

* Slice answer: “I’ve got you pegged for being about 48, full head of brown hair, slightly graying on the sides, glasses, 5-foot-9 (on a good day) and about 170 pounds,” wrote Kristy Bennett. “P.S. You like to wear casual shirts with jeans to the office.”

* Warm-up questions: Ever see a guy riding on the back of a motorcycle driven by a woman? How many of the 3,506 rules and bylaws pertaining to “going steady” can you recall? How many Inland Northwesterners have forgotten to untie the motorboat from the dock before heading for open water? Why can’t you ever remember the funny things you were going to say at work?

* Today’s Slice question: If Spokane were an automobile engine, what would a mechanic recommend?

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