Fun for the family, and some good freak watching, at the fair

I have absolutely nothing to say about a certain daily newspaper today. Instead I am going to play Antoinette Essa and encourage everyone to get out to the Chesterfield County Fair, which runs through Saturday. If you don't have the heftier admission price for the upcoming State Fair or the patience for parking or the stomach for watching a guy drive a nail into his skull via his nostril, then you need to check out the scaled-down version in Chesterfield. (Don't kid yourself, though. If you have little ones it's still going to cost you some bucks for all those three-ticket, two-minute rides.) And it may not be the spectacle the State Fair is but it can still boast a pretty decent freak parade — Boy Scouts and goths, cowboy hats and VFW caps tipping at tattooed biker chicks. T-shirt reading is a pastime in itself: On an older gentleman: "In my next life I am going to have more memory installed." On a young woman, the suggestively simple "Wanna see my tattoo?"
Um, that would be a no.
There were caps for sale saying "Git 'R Done" and signs for "diabetic funnel cakes" and enough political signs lining the road into the fair to warrant the mourning of one whole tree. My favorite odd sight of the day was the pigs, of course. Not because they were racing and had silly names like Piggy Gordon and Rooter Martin. That's just fun. But it was that they were racing under the smiling gaze of a happy face sign reading "Jesus Loves You."
And just one more thing I have to say on sort of a personal note about fairs and amusement parks. If you are a parent anything like me you have spent all of your children's young lives reading books about how to nurture them and keep them safe. You've scrupulously kept them up-to-date on their vaccinations, you cancel playdates when little So-and-So gets a sniffle, you carry antibacterial "magic soap" with you everywhere ... and then ... without batting an eye you stick them on a rickety, jerky flying dragon (you even walk past one closed off with yellow caution tape) knowing the thing has been disassembled and reassembled more times than Michael Jackson's face and then you grin like an idiot to watch them go around in circles.
Man, you've just gotta love the fair.