The Florida State Fair Sideshow

The Florida State Fair always has plenty of what I never do: Rides of all types and descriptions.

Each one makes me queasy if I watch it long enough. There's the fun house, the tilt-a-whirl, the loopty-loop, the ferris wheel, and of course there are always those rides that make you wonder how many people die on them every year.

But I took my daughter to the fair this weekend and although we usually only eat as much junk as we possibly can, then check out the exhibits and the livestock, she wanted to go to the sideshow this time.


It looks most impressive, doesn't it? My daughter, Bugs, was impressed despite the bored looking Jamaican who wordlessly held out his hand for the $2 per person entry fee.

Needless to say, she was quite disappointed when she got inside. The pictures on the outside are hardly what you can find inside, and most of what can be found inside are poorly constructed models of what the "artist" thought something might look like if it was a third grade science project.

The "tortoise" was not a tortoise, but a giant snapping turtle who looked as bored as his keeper. I rather suspect the "live scorpion" had been dead for some time, and the siamese pigs (joined at the head) were sprouting wigs made of white mold, where the formaldehyde had recessed enough to allow the growth of something that probably posed a health hazard which could make a wonderful bio-weapon if placed in the right hands.

The "giant snake eating frog" was real, but had been dead for at least 20 years: At least as long as his "victim", a snake that had obviously been rigged into the frog's mouth post mortem.

The "elephant nose pig" was merely a pig fetus, the "little people of Borneo" were ill-constructed dolls, and there were more mutant creatures swimming in formaldehyde than I'd care to recount.

I wonder if the health department ever bothers to check out the sideshow exhibits? I rather hope not, or their standards may be low enough that I'll need to rethink the greasy pizza, egg rolls, cotton candy, funnel cakes, and sausage that we all sampled.

Come to think of it, I probably should rethink that anyway.