This past Friday, I took my 5 year old son, Jaxon, to the Texas State Fair.  It’s is easily the best state fair in the world, and of course it should be, considering what they charge.  You can easily run through $100 before your first restroom break.  Every food item averages about $4-5 each.  So for me and my son to buy 2 famous state fair corny dogs and 2 drinks, I shelled out $17.  And the corn dogs are just regular size, so those are really just enough to get your appetite kick started.  The good rides are also $5-$6 each, per person.  So if we want to ride something together, it’s about $10-$12 per ride.  And of course they last about 3 minutes if you are lucky.  So just think how much money you can burn through in a single hour of eating and rides.

But if you just expect to spend some money from the start, it’s a lot of fun.  The thing Jaxon was most excited about was getting his face painted.  He got it painted last year and loved all the crazy looks he got.  He loved his snake face so much last year that he wanted to get the same thing this year.  So here he is with both.  The first one is from 2007 and he has his eyes closed so you can see the eyes they painted on his eyelids.    Two different people did this, but as you can see they are pretty similar.  This cost $14, and the line was VERY long.  So long that we left a couple times to go ride something and then came back to see if the line was any shorter, and it never was.  So we finally just waited.

Speaking of rides, the first ride Jaxon rode was a big giant swinging boat.  Not the one that just swings back and forth, but one that spins all around crazy in every direction.  He was in one of his independent moods, so he said he wanted to ride it by himeself.  That was fine with me since it was saving me $6.  So he gets in the boat and happens to set next to 2 teenage girls.  As the ride operator came by to check the restraints I could see him talking to Jaxon and the girls, and then Jaxon got up and moved to sit between the girls.  I guess he didn’t want Jaxon falling out the side, which I thought was a good idea.  I could see Jaxon talking to the girls, but didn’t know what about.  The ride lasted for a while and when it was over, they came walking off.  And the conversation with my 5 year old went like this:

Me: Did you have fun?
Jaxon: Yes.
Me: Did you like sitting with those 2 girls?
Jaxon: Yes.
Me: Did they ask if you were scared?
Jaxon: Yes.
Me: What did you say?
Jaxon: I asked if somebody would hold my hand.
Me: Did you think they were pretty?
Jaxon: Yes.
Me: What else did you say?
Jaxon: I told them I was seven.

Then we decided to try one of the free things, and go check out the Auto-Building.  We walked around the air conditioned building which was nice, and then went over to the concession area to go to the water fountain.  As we finished and turned to go back to the car area, Jaxon almost runs into a couple of girls, that we quickly noticed to be Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, in full uniformed glory.  Without really recognizing who I was talking to, I said, “Excuse me….” and the last part of my “me….” kind of trailed off to nothing as I saw who I was talking to.  I didn’t want to turn on the charm to strongly, not knowing what effect it might have on them.  And they were obviously thinking the same thing because they just kept right on walking, and following close behind was a guy that resembled Lou Ferigno, but without the green body paint.  And as the fog cleared from my brain, I looked aorund and they were gone.  I said, Jaxon, did you see who they were?  He said, No?  I told him.  And I said, I wonder where they were going.  He said, “Let’s go find them.”  Not wanting to disappoint my son on his Fair Day, I said, “OK”.  We wandered around the auto show a little longer looking for them, but never found them.  Jaxon was so disappointed.