We shut it down again last night. We took our friends Ford and Lisa along. Lisa had never been, but you wouldn’t have known it. They were both excellent Fair company. In one of the many emails that went back and forth between us during the workday before we left, Lisa rhapsodized, “OMG I want a funnel cake or a corn dog or what if a corn dog was wrapped inside a funnel cake!” She is now a certified Fair Fiend. It exceeded expectations, as I knew that it would.

The Boy’s favorite new Fair thing is the World of Wonders sideshow. He was front and center for every single attraction, and he balked at leaving when they started the cycle over again with the guy pounding a nail up his nose. He wanted to see it all a second time. Due to the fact that he has no indoor voice whatsoever, the sideshow performers heard every ecstatic question and comment that he squealed out during their show, and eventually they just gave up and began addressing him directly. A more appreciative audience they could not have hoped for. When Electra the Electric Girl stuck a light bulb in her mouth and lit it up, the lecturer barely had a chance to utter the words “we call this trick the Uncle Fester” before The Boy was flapping around the front of the stage like some lunatic moth, screaming “I WAS JUST GOING TO SAY THAT I SAW THAT ON THE ADDAMS FAMILY!” It was truly a match made in heaven, or on the midway. Really, they are practically the same place.

The ride back from Doswell was devoted to casting The Boy’s own future sideshow, which he plans to call Show of Amazement. He’s already claiming dibs on the fire eating and lecturing (of course with the lecturing, his specialty), but you can get in on the ground floor with any one of a number of nifty tricks. Lisa is going to do the barefoot sword ladder, and I will be the snake girl. Step right up!