My kids\u00a0live in Central Florida, so they’re used\u00a0to some serious\u00a0amusement parks: Disney, Universal, Busch Gardens, Legoland… even SeaWorld.<\/p>\n
They still love the\u00a0county fairs, with their\u00a0flashing lights and jangling music, not to mention\u00a0the ever-present (and always delicious) smell of grease and sugar.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As we walked into the Volusia County Fair on\u00a0Sunday, the barkers called out to us.<\/p>\n
“Shoot the star! Win a prize! You can’t miss!”<\/p>\n
“There are three of you. One of you is almost guaranteed to win the water gun race!”<\/p>\n
“It’s easy! Just put the ball in the hoop!”<\/p>\n
“I think I can do that one,” my oldest son said.<\/p>\n
“These go in the category of things you pay for yourself,” I said. Both the boys had remembered to bring their wallets, and each knew exactly how much money he carried. “If you want to play, go for it. It’ll be fun.”<\/p>\n
“Oh,” he said, glancing at the “$5 a throw” sign. “I think I’m good.”<\/p>\n
We started out running\u00a0from ride to ride, then walked, then sort of meandered.<\/p>\n
“Can I get myself cotton candy?” my oldest asked.<\/p>\n
“Of course. Go crazy!”<\/p>\n
He didn’t quite go crazy, but he did get fried macaroni and cheese to go with his cotton candy.<\/p>\n
His little brother\u00a0asked for a piece.<\/p>\n
“Nope,” I interrupted. “It’s fair food.”<\/p>\n
They both looked at me.<\/p>\n
“Fair food is\u00a0crazy good and stupid expensive. You never have to share. Well, you will once you start dating, but unless there’s a girl involved, what you buy\u00a0at a fair is yours.”<\/p>\n
“It is really good,” my son said, chewing on a fried triangle of macaroni and cheese. “And it did cost six dollars.”<\/p>\n
“See?” I said. “Fair food. If you buy it, you get it.”<\/p>\n
“But you always share with us,” my youngest son said.<\/p>\n
“You\u00a0can always share if you want to,” I explained. “You just don’t have to.”<\/p>\n
“I can have an Icee?” he\u00a0asked, looking at a “One price gets whatever you want!” sign.<\/p>\n
“It’s Fair food,” I said and\u00a0soon he was filling a paper cup with all\u00a0rainbow of nearly\u00a0fluorescent colors.<\/p>\n
After a little more deliciousness, we wandered over to the shows and exhibits. The chicken contest didn’t\u00a0hold our interest too long, but we did discover a grizzly bear show that was fantastic, kind of like watching someone play with his\u00a0pet golden retriever, except instead of a dog, the pet was a bear.<\/p>\n
The sun set, and I called my wife, who’d been stuck working.<\/p>\n
“How about\u00a0meeting us for dinner?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got to keep working,” she answered. “but we have leftover ham in the fridge. If we don’t eat it soon, it’ll go bad.”<\/p>\n
I shared this news with the boys. They glanced at each other, then pulled out their wallets and ran to the nearest food vendors. Apparently, leftover ham can’t compete with “Gourmet Grilled Cheese” or\u00a0“The World’s Best Macaroni and Cheese Hot Dog.”<\/p>\n
But hey, it was Fair Food, and they bought their own. Who was I to argue?<\/p>\n
I grabbed myself a “Hot Fresh Authentic Grilled Cheese Steak”, and we walked over to watch the frisbee dogs practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As far as life rules go, this one is pretty easy to live with. Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[118,122,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daddytales-c","category-daddytales-n","category-daddytales-funny"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DpYi-HI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}