Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development

by Jen Lancaster

  We’re running a little late because the fair’s physical address is different from what was posted online, because, yes, I imagine anyone who pulls up the Web site does so because they plan to send the Lake County Fair a letter and not, you know, visit, so it makes sense to bold the mailing address in lieu of the address needed for GPS navigation. Argh. We found this out when we first arrived at a small roadside fruit stand and Fletch commented, “I thought the fair would be bigger.”

  Anyway, I’m distracted by all the choices while we dash to the track. In my peripheral vision, I spy lemon shake-ups and elephant ears and cheese curds! Pizza and burgers and barbecue! Cotton candy! Snow cones!! Popcorn and soft-serve and funnel cakes! This spawns a rather heated discussion about the difference between funnel cakes and elephant ears. Turns out I’m Team Elephant Ear, while Fletch is firmly Team Funnel Cake. We vow to buy both and make Tracey our tiebreaker and I may or may not pledge to eat my way across the fairgrounds à la the rat in Charlotte’s Web.

  We arrive at the Derby and the stands are already full with spectators, so we find a wide-open spot next to the track. Almost immediately a family of vaguely thuggish rednecks muscle their way in front of us, despite there being a ton of standing room all around us. The group seems somewhat indifferent to the concept of personal space (or personal hygiene) and they sport matching tattoos of a wrongfully imprisoned family member on their forearms. [Because neck tattoos are for baby names. Duh.] We determine the matriarch of the group is the gal with the homemade dollar sign inked behind her ear.

  The clan’s clad in matching West Coast Chopper gear and I count sixteen different earrings on the lot of them, none of which is located in the actual lobe. However, they’re all shorter than your average Homo sapien so we can see over them just fine.

  Also, I’d be hesitant to start shit with them because, frankly, they look like biters.

  I silently mock them for a good five minutes until I start to feel bad about it. Given the fact that out of anywhere in the world I could be right now, I’ve chosen to be in the exact same spot as these folks speaks more to my own lack of judgment than anything else. Plus, none of them have a pink ribbon tied around their ponytails. I probably qualify for an ass-kicking for that alone.

  While I try to peaceably coexist, the first act begins. We watch a trained dog doing almost every imaginable trick while standing on his hind legs. The pup gets a ton of “attaboys” and a million Snausages and I’m pleased to see he’s being positively reinforced. [Before we came, I did a check to make sure the show didn’t have any history of animal cruelty.]

  After the opener, two big dogs come bounding out, astride by teeny monkeys in racing breeches gripping the dogs’ bridles, which is quite possibly the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. As they parade around the track, the monkeys look like they’re having the time of their lives. I turn to Fletch and say, “They’re available for private parties. If you don’t hire me some Banana Derby for my next book party, you’re dead to me.”

  Then the race begins and the dogs tear around the track twice while Tracey and I shout ourselves hoarse cheering them on. The monkeys’ tiny faces are wreathed in joy, with wide eyes and big openmouthed smiles. To look at them, you’d think they were born to ride dogs. In my research I learned they were trained as helper monkeys but flunked out of the program. How one makes the logical jump from helper monkey to dog rodeo is anyone’s guess, but they seem genuinely happy to be doing what they’re doing. Serendipity, I guess. If life hands you tiny saddles, make dog-horses.

  After the race, fans can have their picture with the monkey for ten dollars and I’m shocked that no one stampedes the booth. Other than the Manson family in front of us, we’re the only takers.

  “This is going to be the greatest ten dollars I ever spent,” I declare. Tracey opts out, so it’s just the two of us. While we wait our turn, we watch the Manson family have their portrait taken. As they pose with the monkey, I can’t help but notice the similarities.

  Fletch grimaces and leans into us. “You said this is going on our Christmas card? Well, that picture is going over their mantel.”

  When it’s our turn, one of the Russian girls helping the handler tells us to “make nice pose wis monkey” and we attempt to place him on our lap. But the monkey doesn’t want to make nice pose wis us; he wants to go home with us. He keeps climbing up Fletch’s arm, hugging his neck, and gazing into Fletch’s eyes as if to say, “You have dogs and I have a saddle—we can make this work.”

  We’re sad to leave the monkeys, but there’s so much more fair to be seen and tasted. But as we walk away, I notice raised red bumps on all the places the monkey touched me and give myself a vigorous scratching.

  Fletch coolly appraises me. “And that’s where Ebola comes from.”

  After bathing myself in hand sanitizer up to the elbows, we’re ready to begin our dining odyssey.

  As an appetizer, I opt for a corn dog drenched in mustard, washed down with cherry limeade, and chased with a few bites of Fletch’s sausage and peppers. While Tracey enjoys a barbecue sandwich, [Barbecued what? We don’t ask and they don’t tell.] I dive into some waffle fries, topped with a generous dollop of gelatinous orange cheese, scooped from the bubbling vat at the back of the tent.

  We split popcorn, fudge, and a dipped soft-serve cone on our way to the exhibit hall, while Tracey texts enormous fibs to her personal trainer about what she’s eaten. “Just water so far!” ranks right up there with whoppers such as “I have a wide stance.”

  We veer into the exhibit hall—mostly because it’s next to the lemon shake-up stand—and the first display is of roses grown by 4-H participants. “Pfft,” I say, pointing at the blue-ribbon winning hybrid. “You call that a spiral? And that centerpoint? Weak sauce. My roses are way better than these, so where’s MY ribbon?”

  The roses in my yard are the one thing in my garden that I outsource to a professional. When we looked at our house, I was hesitant about the roses all around the back side of it. I knew they were difficult to grow, having had terrible luck with them in the past, and I was afraid as soon as we went into escrow, our new yard would be a thorny, barren wasteland. Our Realtor simply said, “You will have Mike take care of them,” [Talk to Roses & Roses & Roses in Wadsworth. They’re the best!] and that was it. Now, for the price of a fresh-cut bouquet each week, I have dozens of roses blooming in my backyard every day from May until November, producing such an intoxicating scent that it almost masks the smell of dog poop.

  Almost.

  “What you’re telling me is that the roses grown by children aren’t as good as the ones you pay a guy with thirty years’ experience to tend?” Fletch asks with a wry grin.

  I nod. “Exactly.”

  “By all rights, the children’s roses should be much better. They have those little fingers that can really get in places. That’s why they make such great sneakers in third-world countries,” Tracey explains. “Small hands are much better at creating detail.”

  I reply, “See? Tracey gets it, that’s exactly—wait, you’re both making fun of me, aren’t you? You know what? I’m not sharing my elephant ear with either of you.”

  We cruise the length of the hall and when we get to the photography display, I’m suddenly a lot less smug. Some of the pictures taken by the kids are magazine-worthy. There’s depth, nuance, and professional composition and for a second I feel like I’m in a gallery and not a big old barn. I’m not entirely sure how photography relates to farming, but I’m glad 4-H embraces the artistic as well as the practical and we leave the hall on a high note.

  More likely the high note is my excitement over getting an elephant ear.

  I’m already taking my first bite of the hot, crunchy, sugary confection while Fletch waits for his funnel cake. See, the funnel cake is a much more complicated undertaking. With an elephant ear, the dough is stretched like a pizza crust before being placed in hot oil, so it cooks up to a uniform crispness.

  Funnel cake batt
er is placed in the oil via a squeeze-y ketchup bottle, so it comes out in ribbons, thus creating a more doughnutlike treat. The key—and the reason that elephant ears are far superior to the funnel cake—is the butter. Hot elephant ears are slathered in hot, melty, golden goodness before the cinnamon-sugaring, whereas funnel cakes just get a dusting of the powdered stuff. With funnel cakes you have the option to top them with cherry pie filling or chocolate sauce or candy apples, but that’s like slapping a spoiler on a Rolls Royce—totally unnecessary.

  I try to tell Fletch exactly why he’s not enjoying his funnel cake nearly as much as I am my elephant ear, but he’s stubborn and refuses to admit defeat. I’m sure he licked his fingers afterward out of spite more than pleasure.

  Tracey, of course, agrees with me. Butter makes it better. [Don’t believe me? Then ask Paula Deen.]

  When we reach the point of nausea, we decide it’s time to go, but on our way out, we’re lured in by a carnival game. The barker points out that all the seats are empty and if we play, one of us is guaranteed to win.

  I like those odds.

  In this particular challenge, the goal is to shoot so much water into the clown’s mouth that it bursts a balloon. Whoever breaks it first wins a prize. Easy-peasy. Unbeknownst to Fletch or Tracey, I happen to be a whiz at this particular challenge, having spent many summers on beach boardwalk arcades perfecting my game. And although my finger hasn’t touched a trigger in thirty years, I’m confident that I’ve still got it.

  The key is to line up your sights and have the trigger pulled before the water comes on. Those extra few seconds gained while opponents struggle to hit their mark are the difference between winning and losing.

  Between them, Fletch and Tracey have more than a decade of military experience and both have had combat weapons training. But they should have practiced shooting clowns and not terrorists because I whip their asses in record time.

  Twice.

  The two wins are all I need to claim the stuffed bulldog I’d been eyeing, so I lay down my weapon, victorious. Fletch grumbles all the way to the exit, claiming that I somehow rigged the competition.

  “How could I have cheated? Do you think I was in cahoots with the carnie?” I ask.

  “She was deliberately putting thinner balloons on your clown,” Fletch insists.

  “They did seem thinner,” Tracey agrees. “Fletch, I’m pretty sure your balloon was more full than either of ours.”

  Encouraged, he continues. “The sights on my gun were off—way off. Otherwise I’d have won.”

  “Yeah,” I reply, “if you can’t trust a carnie to properly calibrate a water pistol, who can you trust?”

  He’s still suffering from extreme sore-loserism when we get to the exit, so much so that he won’t lend me eight dollars so I can get a cup of deep-fried alligator bites, having blown through the remainder of my cash at the cotton candy stand. [There are ATMs but somehow using one at a carnival seems like an engraved invitation to identity thieves.]

  Tracey offers to buy them for me but then my stomach lurches in a manner that suggests any deep-fried reptile ingested will make a reappearance on the way home. But next year, gator nuggets… bank on that.

  Fletch and I opt for a dinner of chicken noodle soup and Alka Seltzer instead of the pork roast I defrosted when we left for the fair. When Tracey e-mails the photos, I find out she’s having saltines and ginger ale.

  As I look through the shots, I marvel at how skilled she is with the camera and how she captured all the best moments. I’m so happy she came with us because she made the whole experience more fun.

  As much as I love being with Fletch, there’s something to be said for introducing another personality to the dynamic once in a while. Although usually she’s Team Jen, she’s Team Fletch enough to be fair and we both appreciate that.

  But mostly she’s just Team Help You Move the Body.

  And that? Is worth its weight in waffle fries.

  Reluctant Adult Lesson Learned:

  You are not too cool for the Fair, but you are too old not to practice moderation.

  C·H·A·P·T·E·R N·I·N·E·T·E·E·N

  It’s Not Like Texas Didn’t Warn You

  Singer/songwriter/philosopher Jim Croce said it best when he warned people not to tug on Superman’s cape, spit into the wind, or pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger.

  By following the spirit of his sage advice, which I interpret as “avoid that which seems like an overwhelmingly poor choice no matter how you slice it,” [Examples include taking rides from strangers, ever letting your drink leave your sight in a college bar, and jeggings.] I’ve lived a primarily happy life. Yet at no point in my tenure as a reluctant adult did it occur to me that asking for big hair in Dallas, Texas, could possibly violate Croce’s dictum.

  To backtrack, when my friend Stacey Ballis’s new novel Good Enough to Eat was about to come out, she asked me if I was game and I was, so I helped her with a book contest. Anyone who preordered her novel was entered into a drawing in which Stacey and I would come to wherever the winner lived and take her and her best friend to lunch. We were crossing our fingers for New York because we have a number of mutual friends there but were delighted when the contest took us to Dallas instead because I happen to adore Texas. [Maybe it’s all the gun racks? So when they say don’t mess with Texas, they’re not kidding.]

  Stacey and I arrive on a Tuesday in late March and we immediately lose our minds over the gorgeous weather. It’s at least fifty degrees warmer here than at home and we contemplate shedding our pants and rolling around in the grass in front of the hotel. However, Dallas does not seem to be the kind of place that tolerates a lot of pants-less nonsense, [Please see previous note.] so we opt for dinner alfresco instead.

  We have time to kill before our reservation, so to thank me for being an excellent sport, Stacey treats me to a service at a hair place called Drybar where their motto is No Cuts. No Color. Just blowouts.

  For thirty-five dollars, they’ll give you a full blowout in a salon that boasts iPod docks and big-screen televisions broadcasting a never-ending series of rom-coms starring Kate Hudson, Sandra Bullock, and Jennifer Garner. Sweet! There’s champagne available and adorably bagged snacks, too, and the whole place is bright and lively. Plus, you can choose the type of blowout you’d like via a “cocktail” menu—for example, the Manhattan is super-flat-ironed NYC chic, whereas the Mai Tai is more about beachy waves.

  While we wait for our appointments, I don’t hear a thing Stacey says because all that runs through my mind is, “How do I invest in this place?!”

  Stacey insists on getting us the extra ten-minute scalp massage, too. Yay! However, I can’t enjoy mine because as I start to grab my handbag, the stylist says, “No, no, no, leave that here. You’ll be much more comfortable without it,” but this goes completely against my nature. He pretty much insists that there’ll be no issues with my leaving my bag up front before ushering me into the area with the wash sinks.

  This does not sit well with me.

  “I assure you I’d be much more comfortable with my bag,” I tell him as he wets my hair. “I’d like to go get it now.”

  “It’s fine,” he promises me, squeezing a generous amount of shampoo onto my scalp.

  “Yes, you say that, but what if it’s not?”

  He’s supremely confident. “It is.”

  I realize that my overbearing attitude is exactly why people in the South [I know Texans don’t consider themselves the South, but in cartography terms, they really are.] call me “Yankee,” but I can’t stop myself. “What if it isn’t?”

  I’m a neurotic enough traveler that I always have a spare credit card and some cash stowed in my carry-on bag (along with extra lipstick) but that’s not the point. The point is I want my damn bag in my damn lap and leaving it unattended is the kind of stupid risk I never take, even if there is a receptionist sitting right next to it. What if she’s crooked and wants to steal my dental floss or my lucky yellow
paper clip or my identity? What then?

  “Don’t worry. Are you enjoying the massage?”

  Normally during a scalp massage I turn into Loki when he gets his back scratched, all wiggly and leaning in and kicky-legged, but that’s not the case right now. “I’d enjoy it more if I were holding my purse.”

  “Ha! You’re hysterical!”

  Yeah, you’ll see exactly how hysterical I can be if my purse isn’t there upon my return.

  However, he’s right and my bag is perfectly safe. I surreptitiously check for my paper clip and it’s right where it should be, so I unclench a little.

  Stacey is smirking in the chair next to me. “How’d that bag thing work out for you?”

  I flash an obscene gesture before picking my style off the menu. I opt for the Southern Comfort because it has lots of gorgeous, Brigitte Bardot–type volume. There’s a nice amount of fullness at the crown and the sides sweep back gently in a bouncy, face-framing fashion.

  After a five-minute monologue on exactly what I like about the do Brigitte Bardot made famous, I finish by telling the stylist, “I can normally get my hair to go like that for about five minutes before it flattens back out. Maybe we need a little extra volume?”

  “Oh, honey,” he says. “This is Texas. We know big hair. Are you game?”

  This is the point where if my life were a movie, the music would become more urgent and you’d see the first fin circling the boat.

  Mind you, the last time someone asked me if I was game, I nodded and ended up eating a diver scallop served on a bed of sautéed BEEF HEART while Fletch, who was decidedly not game, watched in utter horror. [FYI? There’s a reason you don’t see a lot of heart on the menu.]

  “I’m totally game.”

  I mean, he was right about the purse, yes?

  Stacey and I chat over the whir of the blowers and by the time we’re dry, she looks exactly like the girl on the Straight Up page of the menu. Her Breck Girl hair is silky without being flat and it’s swingy and glossy. Her stylist tells her she can wait in the chair while they finish me.