A Fair Day

Friday, Cait called me at work and wanted to go see Nights in Rodanthe. Doc let me go ahead and leave so we could make the matinee in Lake Worth. I called Elle to see if she wanted to go and witness this event in history: me going to a theater twice in one year. Actually, twice in two months.... By the way, I highly recommend Mamma Mia. Anyhoo, she tells me that she and a friend are going to the State Fair. The friend is a recent uproot from Utah, probably never been outta the state. And Elle is going to take her to the State Fair. Fair Park is not what I would consider "safe" by any means. If I was going, it would be in broad daylight, with a burly man and at least one can of Mace. But no, just two girls who probably think this is like the Utah State Fair. I knew it was a bad sign when she told me the other girl was taking a sweater, in case of cool night air. This is Texas, there IS no cool night air til about December. During the movie I periodically get texts from Elle, telling me what they're doing. One text only said "we've got a barfer". I figured that Miss Utah either had tried every fried item on the midway, or didn't do rides. Apparently it was a combination of the two. For those of you who have never been to the state fair down here, everything, and I mean everything is fried; fried twinkies, fried oreos, fried pickles (oohhhhh I loovvve fried pickles and Ranch), fried Coke, fried cheesecake and the new addition this year, Chicken Fried Bacon. Can you hear your arteries clogging? By this time, I'm home, chillin' in the recliner when I get the next text: "I'm in the back seat of a Dallas squad car". I'm thinking, how much trouble can two Utah girls possibly get into? I warned her not to park in grass of Section 8 housing, where local tenants park you on their grass, take your money, then while you're gone, take most everything they can off of your car and whatever is left is towed because you're parking on city grass. Also said don't look at strangers, don't TALK to strangers, take your Mace and do not go to dark places. Apparently they didn't leave a trail of bread crumbs to find their way back to their car. Elle thought since it had Utah plates, it'd be easy to find.... Apparently, after eating their way through the grease laced midway, riding rides that flip you every which way, they were unable to find their car. They left the relative safety of the fairgrounds and went in to the deep dark night. When I say dark, that is literally and figuratively. Said they ended up in a dark, fairly deserted parking lot. I'm picturing squealing girls, straight outta Happy Valley, clutching their "in case of cool weather" sweaters, standing in the middle of a parking lot, with the wonderfulness of Dallas closing in on them. Elle said she finally saw the above mentioned squad car and flagged it down. After reading her map, the officer finally found their parking lot and told them they were a LONG WAY from where they should be, and just go ahead and hop on in. Elle said it was quite uncomfortable, plastic hard seats and all. I figure that this is so that the officers can just hose out the back after bodily fluids have been thrown about. So, Elle and her friends made it safely back to humanity and I'm figuring that they probably won't be going back any time soon. Sometimes big sisters really do know what they're talking about....