Tiss the season to fest and fair! Apple fest, Fall fest, Garlic
Fest, Pumpkin Fest, Cider fest, Beer fest, Harvest Fest, October
Fest….Stroudsburg had a Sausage fest (distinctly different than those
experienced during your collegiate career) Bloomsburg had a Fair, so did the
“West End” and countless other organizations. Lets not forget the Renaissance
fair, which is in a class of hell all onto itself, but with charming accents. I have a distinct love hate hate relationship
with all and any of the above, and their brethren worldwide.
Some new lexicon:
If one who parties is a partier, and similarly one who swims
is a swimmer, then by extension one who Fests, is a Fester. This is not a definition according to
Dictionary.com but it should be. In fact
it’s close to my experiences…..I fester at the Fair, which is some nice alliteration.
The following is the text from the definition, with my
comments in the ()
fes·ter: verb (used without object)
1. To form pus; generate purulent
matter; suppurate. (Zits caused by the grease saturated Air, or maybe the surprisingly
tasty deep fried Oreo’s covered in chocolate sauce.)
2. To cause ulceration, as a foreign
body in the flesh. (Ulcers due to the increase stress and bile production caused
by the frustration of being part of a sea of humanity suffering from the general
lowering of IQ of any massed group of people.)
3. To putrefy or rot. (This is what
happens as you wait in line, to buy tickets, which give you the right to wait
in line for food, to be consumed while in line to see an “attraction”, which is
part of the wait you must endure for the restroom, prior to waiting in line for
the tram to take you back through the parking lot, allowing you to get into
your car to enter the cue waiting in line to leave.)
4. To rankle, as a feeling of
resentment. (The general emotion I feel towards people who take me to Fests and
Fairs, as in “I am rankled by the act of festering”
I like the idea of festivals; music, food, a bit of
culture. But the execution always fails
me. Part of it is the amount of people,
slowly meandering about, aimlessly looking the various booths of un necessary items,
constantly in my way. And part of it is
paying for the right to wait in line….. After thinking about it, festival
enjoyment is inversely proportional to the number of people in your party,
factored by the number of children under drinking age.
So follow this:
Wine Festival: You and your spouse walk hand in hand,
sampling wine and enjoying some good music, no hurry or agenda….this is ideal.
Garlic Fest: You and your spouse walk holding the
hand of the kids, fighting through vendors, trying to escape with your life…..less
than ideal.
Apple Fest: You and your spouse hold the kids hands,
while wading through the masses, realize the other couples are behind you
waiting in line for a pretzel, forcing you to wait nearby for them…..once the
pretzel is purchased they catch up and after a brief discussion, the other
couple heads off for ice cream, so you continue to wait….the kids stage a full
blown rebellion and you spend 85 dollars on two root beer floats to quell the
revolution. By the time you make it to the music venue the fun band is over and
the local high school garage band is tuning up, poorly. The kids are sugared up
and there is no place to sit. In the
hopes containing the kids you leave them at the venue to wait in line for more
food, which is fried and cold by the time you are able to return only to find
the group has already determined it was time to leave because they missed the
fun band……
BOOM! Brain explosion!
So the fest is
full of festering festers, who fester in line….that's a lot of pus. Enough said.
